Alexandra Lange, "The Design of Childhood"

Parents obsess over their children’s playdates, kindergarten curriculum, and every bump and bruise, but the toys, classrooms, playgrounds, and neighborhoods little ones engage with are just as important. These objects and spaces encode decades, even centuries of changing ideas about what makes for good child-rearing—and what does not. Do you choose wooden toys, or plastic, or, increasingly, digital? What do youngsters lose when seesaws are deemed too dangerous and slides are designed primarily for safety? How can the built environment help children cultivate self-reliance? In these debates, parents, educators, and kids themselves are often caught in the middle. In her new book, The Design of Childhood: How the Material World Shapes Independent Kids, design critic Alexandra Lange reveals the surprising histories behind the human-made elements of our children’s pint-size landscape. Research for the book was supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.

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