Kids need nature.

Dr. Donald Shiffin, a Bellevue, Washington pediatrician, told the New York Times that he rarely sees kids with the broken arms that come from falling out of trees. Instead, they arrive at his office toting video games, cellphones and handheld computers. Eight-year-olds can identify Pokemon cards more readily than native species in their own communities. "We have mobile couch potatoes" Shifrin says. This reviewer's own daughters, when asked to observe a flock of Canada geese on a downtown lawn, looked past the birds and proclaimed, "McDonalds!" Richard Louv addresses this alienation from the natural world in his book Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder (Algonquin Books, $24.95). Louv says well-meaning environmental curricula and the occasional visit to the mill pond aren't enough. Indeed, he reports that society, even when it intends otherwise, teaches young people to fear and avoid nature. Like most Americans, kids spend 90 percent of their time indoors, where air quality is two to 10 times worse than outside air. Louv also documents the spiritual, societal and intellectual rewards of reintroducing children to the place where the wild things are.