The subject of teaching your kids some basic skills like fishing, baseball and yo-yo tricks has the potential to be a terrific cure for insomnia. But Renaissance man Jeffrey Lee (he’s a Seattle doctor and a novelist who teaches workshops in the public schools) uses his own experiences and enthusiasm to make the material zestful.
One of the few missteps is a terribly long title that could scare some people off: “Catch a Fish, Throw a Ball, Fly a Kite: 21 Timeless Skills Every Child Should Know (And Any Parent Can Teach!)” (Three Rivers Press, $12.95). Don’t let it. Lee’s anecdotes about his own childhood and his experiences teaching these skills to his young daughters would make a fine memoir in themselves.
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Even if you don’t have children or nieces or nephews, you may find yourself eagerly trying activities you never mastered as a kid, whether it’s skipping a stone across a lake, making a sand castle or using a blade of grass as a woodwind. Thankfully, for those of us who want to emulate Lee, his instructions are simple yet detailed. Illustrations are helpful, though a few more would have helped.
On building a sand castle: “For easy removal later, you can coat your molds with a thin layer of vegetable oil or WD-40, but do it while they’re still dry.”