G
REEN
P
RINTS
Wild Things! Bringing kids and nature together. By Bobbie Cyphers Author’s Note: Every time I begin to despair over how out of touch with the outdoors, with nature, we humans have become, I look up a group of kids and see what I can do. In the shade of mingling paulownias, eight children sprawled like a litter of puppies atop a blue tarp, fair heads and dark dappled by sunlight. Seasoned veterans of our library’s Summer reading program, they radiated skepticism. Under their scrutiny, all my hours of planning (upwards of 20) and gathering (five, two after twilight the night before) seemed not quite up to the task of engaging such a jaded lot of post-millennial, first-to-third graders. On the table before them stood discarded turtle shells, abandoned bird nests, and butterfly husks. Plants of various olfactory and tactile properties flaunted their attributes. And in specially prepared, temporary museums (a flat of old potting soil and a quart jar with a perforated lid) dwelled several earthworms and two These were my adolescent tadpoles, all four legs exposed. charges, for one Not really a sea of faces—more a puddle— the children looked up at me and waited. fleeting hour, These were my charges, for one fleeting hour, this small this small congregation of fledgling souls. congregation of So I began: fledgling souls. “I am a very, very lucky person. Every morning I get to go outside and play. If I really listen, I’ll hear the very first bird of the morning say ‘Hello.’ If I close my eyes and breathe, I can smell fennel that tastes like licorice and roses that smell like tea. I can hug a hickory tree and taste raindrops. Every day I get to watch frogs leap into the pond 38
