From the Introduction: One day, during a summer vacation at the New Jersey Shore, I witnessed an amazing development. A large group, consisting of several grownups and enough children to choke a van, arrived and claimed its section of beach. While the kids helped the grownups lay down blankets and set up beach umbrellas, one of the adult males began digging an elaborate sand castle with an army entrenching tool. Fascinated, I watched him dig - first a moat, then a spiraling mountain fortress with a winding highway that went all the way to the top. After completing this garrison, the man dumped out on the sand a boxload of soldiers and military ordnance that would have made General Patton green with envy. He then turned to the kids and said: "Have fun." Then he tossed his hat, t-shirt and sunglasses onto a blanket and took off for the surf while the kids began what turned out to be an all-day round of play on his marvelous mountain of sand. When it came to child's play, that man had the right idea. Too often, adults stifle their children's natural creativity with supervised and well-defined (and well-intentioned) activities.
Like that unknown Jersey Shore sand sculptor, this book aims to provide children with the groundwork for fun: activities with minimal adult supervision, and ground rules that the kids can bend and shape at will into their own form of entertainment. link
