LAST CHILD IN THE WOODS: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv

Richard Louv has a copy of a book named "Shelters, Shacks and Shanties" written by Daniel C. Beard in 1915. In his book Daniel C. Beard writes how he "epitomizes a time when a young person's experience of nature was inseparable from the romantic view of the American Frontier." But what really defined Beards' books, and the age they represented, is the unquestionable belief that being in nature was about doing something, about the experience -- and about not being a spectator.

"Most housing tracts, condos, and planned communities constructed in the past two to three decades are controlled by strict covenants that discourage or ban the kind of outdoor play many of us enjoyed as children."  

"The Scripps Ranch Community Association chased kids away from a little pond near the public library, where children had fished for bluegills since Scripps Ranch had been a working cattle spread many decades earlier. In response to the tightened regulations, families erected basketball hoops. Young people moved their skateboard ramps to the foot of their driveways. But the community association reminded the residence that such activity violated the covenants they had signed when they bought their houses. Down came the ramps and poles; and indoors went the kids. Game Boy and Sega became their imagination. Parents became alarmed. Their kids were getting fat."