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Savage Park: A Meditation on Play, Space, and Risk for Americans Who Are Nervous, Distracted, and Afraid to Die – An Essential Guide to Children, Parenthood, and Life
"A fascinating and daresay essential meditation on childhood, parenthood, and the importance of wild spaces for those wild creatures known as kids."—Dave Eggers
How fully can the world be explored when you are focused on trying not to die?
This is the question that lies at the heart of Amy Fusselman’s Savage Park. America is the land of safety, of protecting children to make sure that nothing can possibly hurt them. But while on a trip to Tokyo with her family, Fusselman stumbled upon an adventure playground called Hanegi Playpark, where children sawed wood, hammered nails, and built open fires. Her conceptions of space, risk, and play were shattered. In asking us to reexamine fundamental ideas about our approaches to space and risk and how we pass these concepts down to our children, Fusselman also asks us to look at the world in a different way. Perhaps it isn’t variety, but fear that is the spice of life. This startling revelation is at the heart of Savage Park, and will make readers look at the world in a whole new way.
“I yield to no one in my admiration for Amy Fusselman’s work. Her new book, Savage Park , further explores with astonishing power, eloquence, precision, and acid humor her obsessive, necessary the gossamer-thin separation between life and death.” —David Shields, author of Reality Hunger
“In this unusually refreshing meditation (which reads like a novel), we are given a tour of the space around and within us. With poetic efficiency Amy Fusselman reveals what makes us savage or not; why secret, wild spaces are essential; and why playing should be taken seriously.” —Philippe Petit, high-wire artist
How fully can the world be explored when you are focused on trying not to die?
This is the question that lies at the heart of Amy Fusselman’s Savage Park. America is the land of safety, of protecting children to make sure that nothing can possibly hurt them. But while on a trip to Tokyo with her family, Fusselman stumbled upon an adventure playground called Hanegi Playpark, where children sawed wood, hammered nails, and built open fires. Her conceptions of space, risk, and play were shattered. In asking us to reexamine fundamental ideas about our approaches to space and risk and how we pass these concepts down to our children, Fusselman also asks us to look at the world in a different way. Perhaps it isn’t variety, but fear that is the spice of life. This startling revelation is at the heart of Savage Park, and will make readers look at the world in a whole new way.
“I yield to no one in my admiration for Amy Fusselman’s work. Her new book, Savage Park , further explores with astonishing power, eloquence, precision, and acid humor her obsessive, necessary the gossamer-thin separation between life and death.” —David Shields, author of Reality Hunger
“In this unusually refreshing meditation (which reads like a novel), we are given a tour of the space around and within us. With poetic efficiency Amy Fusselman reveals what makes us savage or not; why secret, wild spaces are essential; and why playing should be taken seriously.” —Philippe Petit, high-wire artist
144 pages, Paperback
First published January 13, 2015
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1404 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews
July 20, 2017
I pre-edited this book many moons ago, and it absolutely, totally ruled. I'm so excited that it's finally out!
I admit that I don't love the cover because it makes the book look kind of folksy/storytellery, when actually it's this totally harrowing and plangent meandering meditation on these Japanese parks for kids that are basically giant dangerous piles of metal and wood and dirt, plus getting over crippling fears, walking on tightropes, dealing with death and mortality, learning how to play at any age, and understanding how to have a body in relation to the world around you—all sorts of cool thinky stuff like that.
It's an absolutely splendid, fairly unclassifiable set of joined essays, and I really think everyone ought to read it right away.
I admit that I don't love the cover because it makes the book look kind of folksy/storytellery, when actually it's this totally harrowing and plangent meandering meditation on these Japanese parks for kids that are basically giant dangerous piles of metal and wood and dirt, plus getting over crippling fears, walking on tightropes, dealing with death and mortality, learning how to play at any age, and understanding how to have a body in relation to the world around you—all sorts of cool thinky stuff like that.
It's an absolutely splendid, fairly unclassifiable set of joined essays, and I really think everyone ought to read it right away.
June 5, 2015
I received this as an ARC from Goodreads.
Amy Fusselman’s Meditation on play, space, and risk for Americans who are nervous, distracted, and afraid to die is half memoir/half rant on what we Americans classify as the act of playing, how we perceive small-s space (space on Earth) or big-s space (outer space) and why we American’s are so worried about everything affecting our fast lives and our worry that death is always at our figurative ‘front door’ and let it control our lives.
As she and her family (husband and 2 boys) visit a friend in Tokyo and walk around through the landscape inside and outside of the city, they come across Hanegi Koen Park which includes the smaller Hanegi Playpark (aka Savage Park) within. As the family enters this space, Amy notices that it’s quite different than any American playground she’s been on.
”We turned back and stood there, dumbfounded, staring at the dirt and trees and the structures that were woven around and between them, structures that were clearly not made in any place where safety surfacing had ever been a serious discussion…the material to make the structures – hammers, wood, saws, hole punchers, screwdrivers, nails, paint, brushes and donated scraps of all kinds – were available at the park for everyone to use”
Also, to her surprise she sees children in trees:
”I looked up at the trees. I was astonished to see that there were children in them. The more I looked, the more children I saw. There were children fifteen feet high in the air. There were children perched on tiny homemade wooden platforms, like circus ladies dressed in glittery clothes about to swan-dive into little buckets. There were children sitting up there, relaxed, in their navy blue sailor-type school uniforms, chatting and eating candy on bitty rectangles of rickety wood as if they were lounging on the Lido deck of the Love Boat.”
Reasons why parents should take more responsibility about the commercial products they use to supposedly ‘protect’ their children:
A typical scenario: A baby is left playing in the seat (baby bath ring, holds a baby/toddler up in the bathtub as they are bathing) when someone comes to the front door or the telephone rings. The mother believes the seat will protect her baby. She walks away and is gone briefly. The baby reaches over to retrieve a toy or tries to stand up. The suction on the bottom pops loose. The baby falls forward or slips. In a few minutes, the mother returns to find her baby face-down in the tub. But by then, it’s too late.
I was surprised. The problem with the above scenario, to my mind, was not the bath seat. It was the mother’s belief that the seat would “protect her baby” while she was gone. I kept reading, looking for whatever else might be wrong with the seat. Finally I was stopped short by the following concluding sentence:
“While this CU Guide warns parents never to leave a child alone, it also acknowledges reality: a parent can become distracted, and a child should not have to pay with her or his life as a result.”
This sentence gave me pause. If parents are distracted while bathing infants in the bathtub, it is because they do not understand the risk of putting a tiny child who can’t yet sit up in water. A mature and respectful relationship with water – let alone with baby – includes this understanding.
What kind of reality is this, where a parent should be protected from having to face that fact that water is precious and perilous, where she should be encouraged to entrust her baby’s life – this would be funny if it weren’t so sad – to a bath seat? Who is the child here? And what is being protected? It is not, ultimately, the baby. It is the parent’s “right” to become distracted.”
Also why we should allow our kids to play and not worry about them hurting themselves constantly and the American mentality on death and dying:
”American playgrounds can’t look like Hanegi Playpark because Americans refuse to make peace with their own death and dying. This approach is built into the culture at the most profound levels, and the mostly unconscious indoctrination into this perspective begins very young.”
Overall, Fusselman makes some interesting points in her thesis about the aforementioned subjects, although her discussion of space seems a bit tedious and out of place, yet I’ll still say the book is a quick, entertaining read. An easy 3 stars.
Amy Fusselman’s Meditation on play, space, and risk for Americans who are nervous, distracted, and afraid to die is half memoir/half rant on what we Americans classify as the act of playing, how we perceive small-s space (space on Earth) or big-s space (outer space) and why we American’s are so worried about everything affecting our fast lives and our worry that death is always at our figurative ‘front door’ and let it control our lives.
As she and her family (husband and 2 boys) visit a friend in Tokyo and walk around through the landscape inside and outside of the city, they come across Hanegi Koen Park which includes the smaller Hanegi Playpark (aka Savage Park) within. As the family enters this space, Amy notices that it’s quite different than any American playground she’s been on.
”We turned back and stood there, dumbfounded, staring at the dirt and trees and the structures that were woven around and between them, structures that were clearly not made in any place where safety surfacing had ever been a serious discussion…the material to make the structures – hammers, wood, saws, hole punchers, screwdrivers, nails, paint, brushes and donated scraps of all kinds – were available at the park for everyone to use”
Also, to her surprise she sees children in trees:
”I looked up at the trees. I was astonished to see that there were children in them. The more I looked, the more children I saw. There were children fifteen feet high in the air. There were children perched on tiny homemade wooden platforms, like circus ladies dressed in glittery clothes about to swan-dive into little buckets. There were children sitting up there, relaxed, in their navy blue sailor-type school uniforms, chatting and eating candy on bitty rectangles of rickety wood as if they were lounging on the Lido deck of the Love Boat.”
Reasons why parents should take more responsibility about the commercial products they use to supposedly ‘protect’ their children:
A typical scenario: A baby is left playing in the seat (baby bath ring, holds a baby/toddler up in the bathtub as they are bathing) when someone comes to the front door or the telephone rings. The mother believes the seat will protect her baby. She walks away and is gone briefly. The baby reaches over to retrieve a toy or tries to stand up. The suction on the bottom pops loose. The baby falls forward or slips. In a few minutes, the mother returns to find her baby face-down in the tub. But by then, it’s too late.
I was surprised. The problem with the above scenario, to my mind, was not the bath seat. It was the mother’s belief that the seat would “protect her baby” while she was gone. I kept reading, looking for whatever else might be wrong with the seat. Finally I was stopped short by the following concluding sentence:
“While this CU Guide warns parents never to leave a child alone, it also acknowledges reality: a parent can become distracted, and a child should not have to pay with her or his life as a result.”
This sentence gave me pause. If parents are distracted while bathing infants in the bathtub, it is because they do not understand the risk of putting a tiny child who can’t yet sit up in water. A mature and respectful relationship with water – let alone with baby – includes this understanding.
What kind of reality is this, where a parent should be protected from having to face that fact that water is precious and perilous, where she should be encouraged to entrust her baby’s life – this would be funny if it weren’t so sad – to a bath seat? Who is the child here? And what is being protected? It is not, ultimately, the baby. It is the parent’s “right” to become distracted.”
Also why we should allow our kids to play and not worry about them hurting themselves constantly and the American mentality on death and dying:
”American playgrounds can’t look like Hanegi Playpark because Americans refuse to make peace with their own death and dying. This approach is built into the culture at the most profound levels, and the mostly unconscious indoctrination into this perspective begins very young.”
Overall, Fusselman makes some interesting points in her thesis about the aforementioned subjects, although her discussion of space seems a bit tedious and out of place, yet I’ll still say the book is a quick, entertaining read. An easy 3 stars.
August 29, 2017
Amy Fusselman is an interesting, fun, and funny person, and I went into reading this book thinking that Savage Park would be light and maybe thought provoking, interesting, and unique. It was. But the book also had this weight, (and not just because of an event in the book which I will not spoil, which was incredibly heavy), this gravitas, this underground current of deep thinking running through it (even through the lighter/funny parts).
Sometimes, our mind's eye sees memories as photos from a camera that had vaseline rubbed on the lens. They spark this kind of bittersweet physical remembering, cut out from everything else like an unplaced collage piece. We ALL have those. But hardly ANYONE can express them so that other people see those of another person. And, that's what the author did there, at least for me.
Savage Park is a truly beautiful book that has all of the things that great writing and great storytelling should have, and it has more. It has more than that, because the author's soul is actually in the words. I'm always absolutely amazed when a writer can do that.
Sometimes, our mind's eye sees memories as photos from a camera that had vaseline rubbed on the lens. They spark this kind of bittersweet physical remembering, cut out from everything else like an unplaced collage piece. We ALL have those. But hardly ANYONE can express them so that other people see those of another person. And, that's what the author did there, at least for me.
Savage Park is a truly beautiful book that has all of the things that great writing and great storytelling should have, and it has more. It has more than that, because the author's soul is actually in the words. I'm always absolutely amazed when a writer can do that.
January 15, 2015
So interesting conceptually but a bumpy ride. I wanted more about Japan, about what makes Japanese parents enable a playspace like this.
May 13, 2016
There's a great idea here - but it needed honing.
I was right there with Fusselman in Part I as she visited Tokyo, waxed on space, play, and fear... but then she kind of lost me when part II unrolled.
I was right there with Fusselman in Part I as she visited Tokyo, waxed on space, play, and fear... but then she kind of lost me when part II unrolled.
March 18, 2023
play is not about what you do, but how you do it ~
play is courageous, and so is moving through space like it is your home ~
objects and people are trembling all the time in space, safe and unsafe, moving and not moving, changing ~
americans *are* afraid to die, and afraid to imagine other possibilities outside of the definitions of our regulated landscape ~
friendship is trusting someone with a game in the dark, and sitting side by side in silence like sisters ~
"play at your own risk" is the only sign needed before entering any space that is life ~
~when we die, we are "birthing ourselves"
~thinking about the garage or shed or basement where older men are creating objects and why can't any space be a space for this
~objects are like our children, too. we want to keep them from getting damaged (keep them), but the objects and the children also need to live
~the park is a space outside of capitalism, where people should roam, rearrange the parts around them, experiment, hide, eat, collaborate, and fail
play is courageous, and so is moving through space like it is your home ~
objects and people are trembling all the time in space, safe and unsafe, moving and not moving, changing ~
americans *are* afraid to die, and afraid to imagine other possibilities outside of the definitions of our regulated landscape ~
friendship is trusting someone with a game in the dark, and sitting side by side in silence like sisters ~
"play at your own risk" is the only sign needed before entering any space that is life ~
~when we die, we are "birthing ourselves"
~thinking about the garage or shed or basement where older men are creating objects and why can't any space be a space for this
~objects are like our children, too. we want to keep them from getting damaged (keep them), but the objects and the children also need to live
~the park is a space outside of capitalism, where people should roam, rearrange the parts around them, experiment, hide, eat, collaborate, and fail
September 26, 2019
There are some interesting and evocative vignettes/observations here, arranged (quite) loosely around the theme of the safety of our children and the overprotective nature that pervades Western parenting, but at times it feels like the sum of the parts is less than it could be, as they are placed too scattershot to achieve a coherent end.
November 20, 2015
I'd consider this part memoir, part poetic, at times
It's a non-fictional story about the author's time spent at Hanegi Park AKA Savage Park, in Tokyo
She first goes there while on a visit with her husband & young children, & staying with her friend , Yelena & her husband &children, at their apartment in Tokyo
Yelena takes her to Hanegi Park, which is vastly different from American playgrounds. It allows children to play in the dirt with hammers, nails & other scraps that children may use while playing. There are open fires where a man toasts marshmallows, tires that can be moved by the children to roll & put in a broken down boat
It's about space, or as the author writes, s-space, as opposed to S-Space. It's being mindful in the here & now & being present. To look at your surroundings, & take from that space all you can while in it
Our American playgrounds are made safe, more for parents fantasies that there is a safe place for children to play in. Governed by the standards set by the Consumer Product Safety Commission & certified with certain guidelines in order to make the playground "safe"
She goes back again to work for a week,alongside Hanegi Park employee, Noriko They put in 12 hour shifts daily, just overseeing the park. One evening while a meeting was taking place, she was ready to leave. Noriko hands her the key to her apartment & she's left to rely on her gut to get back to the apartment alone. She always chatted with Noriko while on their daily walks to & from the park & she didn't pay much attention on the route, but she walked it so many times, her gut guides her safely back to the apartment in a foreign country where she doesn't speak the language
Earlier she writes about an experience with a famous tight rope walker. The man who walked between the Twin Towers in NYC on a tightrope back & forth 8 times, although it was illegal. She takes a class with him wanting to learn about space from him, but also learns to connect with objects. It seems funny to say "hello" to a ball you may be holding in your hand
Towards the end was where I found it to be very poetic when talking about how objects & people are both broken
This book has made me be more aware and mindful of the space I'm in, what's in it, who I may be sharing it with or if I'm alone in it at the time. It's mainly about being present in the here & now
I won this in a Goodreads giveaway & have written an honest opinion of the book
It's a non-fictional story about the author's time spent at Hanegi Park AKA Savage Park, in Tokyo
She first goes there while on a visit with her husband & young children, & staying with her friend , Yelena & her husband &children, at their apartment in Tokyo
Yelena takes her to Hanegi Park, which is vastly different from American playgrounds. It allows children to play in the dirt with hammers, nails & other scraps that children may use while playing. There are open fires where a man toasts marshmallows, tires that can be moved by the children to roll & put in a broken down boat
It's about space, or as the author writes, s-space, as opposed to S-Space. It's being mindful in the here & now & being present. To look at your surroundings, & take from that space all you can while in it
Our American playgrounds are made safe, more for parents fantasies that there is a safe place for children to play in. Governed by the standards set by the Consumer Product Safety Commission & certified with certain guidelines in order to make the playground "safe"
She goes back again to work for a week,alongside Hanegi Park employee, Noriko They put in 12 hour shifts daily, just overseeing the park. One evening while a meeting was taking place, she was ready to leave. Noriko hands her the key to her apartment & she's left to rely on her gut to get back to the apartment alone. She always chatted with Noriko while on their daily walks to & from the park & she didn't pay much attention on the route, but she walked it so many times, her gut guides her safely back to the apartment in a foreign country where she doesn't speak the language
Earlier she writes about an experience with a famous tight rope walker. The man who walked between the Twin Towers in NYC on a tightrope back & forth 8 times, although it was illegal. She takes a class with him wanting to learn about space from him, but also learns to connect with objects. It seems funny to say "hello" to a ball you may be holding in your hand
Towards the end was where I found it to be very poetic when talking about how objects & people are both broken
This book has made me be more aware and mindful of the space I'm in, what's in it, who I may be sharing it with or if I'm alone in it at the time. It's mainly about being present in the here & now
I won this in a Goodreads giveaway & have written an honest opinion of the book
March 23, 2015
Amy Fusselman is one of those narrators who, as Anne Lamott puts it, could say "Hey, I've got to drive up to the dump in Petaluma-wanna come along?" and I honestly wouldn't be able to think of anything I'd rather do. (https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9375...)
She is so brilliant and perceptive, and has such a charming voice. It's incredible the amount of material she covers in this relatively small book. I think in the hands of most other authors it would come across as unfocused, all over the place. But Fusselman manages to weave it all together beautifully.
One of my favorite passages, which comes across a little structurally awkward out of context but flows beautifully when read with the rest of the paragraph/chapter/book:
"It was because the place existed at all for just this reason: this full and complete allowance of a self, including all the ineptness, failure, and possibility of death, because it is understood that only with this allowance do we have the capacity to be great."
!!!
<3 <3 <3
She is so brilliant and perceptive, and has such a charming voice. It's incredible the amount of material she covers in this relatively small book. I think in the hands of most other authors it would come across as unfocused, all over the place. But Fusselman manages to weave it all together beautifully.
One of my favorite passages, which comes across a little structurally awkward out of context but flows beautifully when read with the rest of the paragraph/chapter/book:
"It was because the place existed at all for just this reason: this full and complete allowance of a self, including all the ineptness, failure, and possibility of death, because it is understood that only with this allowance do we have the capacity to be great."
!!!
<3 <3 <3
May 26, 2016
I went into this thinking it was going to be along the lines of that Atlantic article a few years back, about the adventure playgrounds. It sort of is...but really I guess it's not. At first I was sort of disappointed: she almost glosses over the parts about the Japanese playground and the wild, dangerous adventure it represents. She and her family visit and accept the playground in an almost anticlimactic fashion. I expected a treatise on how American parents over-shelter their kids, and how revelatory the experience of visiting the adventure playground was for her, but really the playground was just a jumping off point for a very lovely examination of play, and how mindlessly yet anxiously we move through most of our days. I really enjoyed Amy Fusselman's other books, and her writing and persona here are no less winning. Overall, once I moved past my own assumptions about this book, I found it to be a very enjoyable and thoughtful read.
March 8, 2015
It was an interesting and quick read. I completely identified with her idea that by protecting (or overprotecting) our children we are not teaching them to be safe in the real world. Not teaching them that sometimes risks need to be taken, but if we are attentive and fully present in the moment we can be safe enough. Hanegi park in Japan looks fascinating. As I think back to when my kids were young and we went to parks all the time, the best part of the parks was not the play structure (which of course was safe with appropriate padding underneath), but everything else. There was the park with the great climbing trees, the park with the big rocks, the park that had all the great mulch they could make into "ice-cream cones" or "sandwiches".
June 30, 2015
Fusselman's meditation on space, play, and risk is subtly effective thanks in large part to her always generous and warm voice. You just can't help but fall in love with the way she talks about tightrope walking, experimental architects, battle tops made of Legos, and the Tokyo playground (Hanegi Playpark) that inspired this whole train of thought--and the book does read like one wonderful train of thought.
In one great passage, she talks about how her son, Mick, has figured out the secret delight of moving in slow motion to a fast song. This book is kind of like that--all these big subjects (birth, play, death)--are thoughtfully savored and slowly unravelled and it's stunning and delightful to watch.
In one great passage, she talks about how her son, Mick, has figured out the secret delight of moving in slow motion to a fast song. This book is kind of like that--all these big subjects (birth, play, death)--are thoughtfully savored and slowly unravelled and it's stunning and delightful to watch.
February 16, 2015
The lengthy subtitle for this book tricks you into thinking it might actually be about something, as opposed to being (instead) a showcase for disconcertingly aimless diary-like entries about the author's time wandering 'round Tokyo playparks, peppered with the occasional Ruskin quote to ratchet up the Sophistication Quotient. There's a good question at the heart of this book -- why are American parents so overprotective about the spaces their children inhabit? -- but very little substantive follow-through. At least it was short.
January 20, 2015
Goodreads win. Will read and review once received.
This was a very interesting read. I really loved the flow of this book and the topics that are covered in this book. It was a book that can be read within one day. The idea in this book was very interesting and I learnt quite a bit of things. I can deifnitely see myself re reading this book in the future.
This was a very interesting read. I really loved the flow of this book and the topics that are covered in this book. It was a book that can be read within one day. The idea in this book was very interesting and I learnt quite a bit of things. I can deifnitely see myself re reading this book in the future.
January 15, 2015
Maybe the Japanese have a good idea here. We protect our children from every conceivable harm that would beset them. Not sure if that's he right way to experience life a young age.
July 10, 2016
Thank you to Josh for the book recommendation.
April 17, 2019
I spent the last two years hearing about this book from a friend. For whatever reason, I would nod at the recommendation and then promptly forget all about it. If only I'd read it sooner! The concept that one can play anywhere, hence belong anywhere, is delightful and flies in the face of capitalism-fueled existential dread. In a quick one-hundred twenty pages, one discovers in reading Fusselman on play, space, and risk an inevitable joy. Even turning the pages of the book, I found, was a kind of game. My head is now full of ideas about how to fill the world around me with play. Savage Park, the essay itself and the park for which it's named, is a state of mind one brings to being. As Husselman writes, play is a "how," not a "what." If you enjoy playful meditations and unruly abstractions (as I very much do), this book will not disappoint!
Also, it's only discussed for a page or so, but the idea that American restaurants--or, more broadly, restaurants--were naturally infantilizing to patrons fascinated me. The "mommy-sphere," Husselman calls it. Waiters are mommies! Why don't I cook the food myself? Why don't I just get up and get another Sprite? I guess I want Mommy to do it for me. Some of these meditations, such as the condemnation of computers and tablets, read more fractious than truly concerned about their dangers. (Maybe I'm annoyed because I grew up with a mix of outdoor and "screen-based" activities; also I know family friends who tell me their children with autism can really thrive given iPads and other touch-screen devices to play. I know it isn't that deep, but that's kind of my point about the book. If play is really a state of mind, why are electronics suddenly an exception to that otherwise liberating rule?)
Expect a dearth of insight on the accessibility of space, how we restrict public spaces, how some people are more easily afforded spaces than others, etc. In that way, the point-of-view of Savage Park is limited. Husselman's friend Yelena's makeshift art station at MUJI, for example, is cute but also potentially ignorant of social convention and respectful awareness of those around you. Yelena is white, and her knack for acting "like a homeless person," as Husselman writes, is depicted as nomadic and romantic, but I applaud her confidence with hesitant admiration. Yes, everyone should be free to challenge the system of capitalism and subvert its awful expectations of us, but even a rudimentary understanding of how facets of identity factor into how different people play with space would be useful for qualifying that belief. Husselman disclaims Americans are unlikely to adopt such an attitude themselves based on societal expectations, but there are plenty, including she and her whole family, who clearly have it easy enough to say, "Screw those expectations!"
All that being said, despite some lack of social awareness on the part of the author, I think Savage Park itself is a useful read that lets everyone enjoy the fun of play. I can imagine using ideas and games from the book in a classroom setting. The teachings, fortunately, are fairly accessible and refreshingly simple.
Also, it's only discussed for a page or so, but the idea that American restaurants--or, more broadly, restaurants--were naturally infantilizing to patrons fascinated me. The "mommy-sphere," Husselman calls it. Waiters are mommies! Why don't I cook the food myself? Why don't I just get up and get another Sprite? I guess I want Mommy to do it for me. Some of these meditations, such as the condemnation of computers and tablets, read more fractious than truly concerned about their dangers. (Maybe I'm annoyed because I grew up with a mix of outdoor and "screen-based" activities; also I know family friends who tell me their children with autism can really thrive given iPads and other touch-screen devices to play. I know it isn't that deep, but that's kind of my point about the book. If play is really a state of mind, why are electronics suddenly an exception to that otherwise liberating rule?)
Expect a dearth of insight on the accessibility of space, how we restrict public spaces, how some people are more easily afforded spaces than others, etc. In that way, the point-of-view of Savage Park is limited. Husselman's friend Yelena's makeshift art station at MUJI, for example, is cute but also potentially ignorant of social convention and respectful awareness of those around you. Yelena is white, and her knack for acting "like a homeless person," as Husselman writes, is depicted as nomadic and romantic, but I applaud her confidence with hesitant admiration. Yes, everyone should be free to challenge the system of capitalism and subvert its awful expectations of us, but even a rudimentary understanding of how facets of identity factor into how different people play with space would be useful for qualifying that belief. Husselman disclaims Americans are unlikely to adopt such an attitude themselves based on societal expectations, but there are plenty, including she and her whole family, who clearly have it easy enough to say, "Screw those expectations!"
All that being said, despite some lack of social awareness on the part of the author, I think Savage Park itself is a useful read that lets everyone enjoy the fun of play. I can imagine using ideas and games from the book in a classroom setting. The teachings, fortunately, are fairly accessible and refreshingly simple.
November 10, 2022
I would describe this arty book as "mildly interesting." I take the point that American lives are often sanitized and, by design, removed from risk, and how this may be a detriment to both children and adults. The problem with the argument is that it only applies to a distinct selection of the population - the middle or upper middle class. This is fine, but it deserves acknowledgment at least. I also think much of this book was boring. I don't need to see a picture of your friend's random baby, it is not interesting or relevant and I don't know why I am looking at it. Ultimately this would have made a much better article, because even as a slender tome there was too much unnecessary information.
Read
April 5, 2015I needed to step away from reading books on education and productivity. With my latest batch of books from the library(currently have 56 checked out) I read Savage Park by Amy Fusselman. I read it without checking out the back cover or trying to remember why I checked it out in the first place. I just dove in.
I am glad I did because the book was a departure from my usual readings. This book is part journal/memoir with a dash of manifesto on play, combined with storytelling, and ideas on importance of space, play, finding ourselves, and more. I don’t really know how to describe it any other way.
What really connected me to this book is that ironically while I was reading about the ideas in the book my son and neighborhood kids took on the task of building a tree fort. As much as I wanted to say no, tell them to be safe, no tools, don’t climb too high, and all the other adult limitations set upon kids today I chose not to. I kept to the integrity of what I was reading in the book to see how things played out. I never gave advice, I did not tell them no(when I wanted to so many times), and just let them figure things out. I was so impressed that after about 30 hours of work they had assembled a fort that they could call their own with some impressive troubleshooting ideas.
IMG_2724 IMG_2725 IMG_2726 IMG_2727 IMG_2728 IMG_2729
Going back to the book I had to write down some passages that just really hit home.
“Why do we ever stop saying “Hi!” to everything? How is the understanding that the entire world is worthy of conscious consideration ever lost?”
This quote really resonates with me. My three year old will talk to anyone and anything. She does not care and is always so happy. I have written before on that it drives me nuts when you say good morning or hello to someone in the hallway and they walk by and don’t say anything back. How can you look at someone, recognize they are talking to you and not respond? It drives me crazy.
Another passage that really smacked me in the face was the idea of distraction. In the book the author discusses the sad situation of the labels and warnings needed for bathing infants in bathtubs and story of a mother who believed that a bath seat would protect her baby in the water while she was distracted.
“…a parent can become distracted, and a child should not have to pay with her or his life as a result.”
I am reminded of myself and how easily I get distracted. The anxiety I feel when I don’t get all these things done that I think are essential. When I calm my brain down and really process what is important in life I laugh. This blog is not essential. My nerdy videos are not essential, social media is not essential, yet I often am distracted by these thoughts in my daily life or when I should be playing with my kids more.
PLAY
My topic of love. I blog about play. I have a Play and Tinkering G+ group. I am fascinated by play and continue to push for more play in schools. The book opened up my eyes to so many things. If we take a US focus, play is often described as an activity. The book references Roger Caillois when he says something that I LOVE! “The structure sof play and reality are often identical, but the respective activities that they subsume are not reducible to each other in time or place.” Basically, play is a reality twin of reality!
How powerful is that statement? Yet it is perfect.
“Play is not something that we do; it is something that we are.” This statement is something that we forget as adults. We try to schedule “play dates” or “play time” or we have now moved to an oversaturated society where everything is scheduled with perfectly created uniforms, schedules, rules, and adults involved at every nook and cranny. We have basically eliminated play from the lifestyles of children.
The book continues to take a look at how every playground in America is the same due to all the rules and restrictions. When compared to the Hanegi Playpark where kids just make with tools and scraps found laying around it is quite sad. As Susan Solomon states in her book American Playgrounds, “Existing American playgrounds are a disaster.”
Finally, I love this final quote worth sharing
“To play, you do not need a particular object or game or even a playground, you need only an assent, a grateful and glad yes.”
Kids need space. They need to be able to leave the reality of worksheets, sitting in desks all day, being forcefed useless knowledge and information and given time to explore, to learn, to grow in their own terms. We need adults to step back and give them the space needed to find themselves. I am not suggesting we let them be all the time and ignore them, but how often do we let them find their own path? We allow them to be distracted with devices and video games just as we do ourselves, but that is not what we are talking about.
If I can go back to my son. I wanted to intervene. But for three days my son did not touch his iPad. He is an iPad junkie and I partly to blame for allowing it to happen. He will waste a day away if I let him. For three days he spent 10-12 hours each day in this fort building, fixing, learning how to use tools, and just playing. It was wonderful.
IMG_2730
I would encourage you to read this book. If nothing else it tells a remarkable story of people who grapple with space, family, friends, growing up, and most important what it means to be human. At a deeper level I hope you rethink your ideas on play.
Last, next time kids want to play please give them the space to do so and maybe they will create their own fort or something even better.
I am glad I did because the book was a departure from my usual readings. This book is part journal/memoir with a dash of manifesto on play, combined with storytelling, and ideas on importance of space, play, finding ourselves, and more. I don’t really know how to describe it any other way.
What really connected me to this book is that ironically while I was reading about the ideas in the book my son and neighborhood kids took on the task of building a tree fort. As much as I wanted to say no, tell them to be safe, no tools, don’t climb too high, and all the other adult limitations set upon kids today I chose not to. I kept to the integrity of what I was reading in the book to see how things played out. I never gave advice, I did not tell them no(when I wanted to so many times), and just let them figure things out. I was so impressed that after about 30 hours of work they had assembled a fort that they could call their own with some impressive troubleshooting ideas.
IMG_2724 IMG_2725 IMG_2726 IMG_2727 IMG_2728 IMG_2729
Going back to the book I had to write down some passages that just really hit home.
“Why do we ever stop saying “Hi!” to everything? How is the understanding that the entire world is worthy of conscious consideration ever lost?”
This quote really resonates with me. My three year old will talk to anyone and anything. She does not care and is always so happy. I have written before on that it drives me nuts when you say good morning or hello to someone in the hallway and they walk by and don’t say anything back. How can you look at someone, recognize they are talking to you and not respond? It drives me crazy.
Another passage that really smacked me in the face was the idea of distraction. In the book the author discusses the sad situation of the labels and warnings needed for bathing infants in bathtubs and story of a mother who believed that a bath seat would protect her baby in the water while she was distracted.
“…a parent can become distracted, and a child should not have to pay with her or his life as a result.”
I am reminded of myself and how easily I get distracted. The anxiety I feel when I don’t get all these things done that I think are essential. When I calm my brain down and really process what is important in life I laugh. This blog is not essential. My nerdy videos are not essential, social media is not essential, yet I often am distracted by these thoughts in my daily life or when I should be playing with my kids more.
PLAY
My topic of love. I blog about play. I have a Play and Tinkering G+ group. I am fascinated by play and continue to push for more play in schools. The book opened up my eyes to so many things. If we take a US focus, play is often described as an activity. The book references Roger Caillois when he says something that I LOVE! “The structure sof play and reality are often identical, but the respective activities that they subsume are not reducible to each other in time or place.” Basically, play is a reality twin of reality!
How powerful is that statement? Yet it is perfect.
“Play is not something that we do; it is something that we are.” This statement is something that we forget as adults. We try to schedule “play dates” or “play time” or we have now moved to an oversaturated society where everything is scheduled with perfectly created uniforms, schedules, rules, and adults involved at every nook and cranny. We have basically eliminated play from the lifestyles of children.
The book continues to take a look at how every playground in America is the same due to all the rules and restrictions. When compared to the Hanegi Playpark where kids just make with tools and scraps found laying around it is quite sad. As Susan Solomon states in her book American Playgrounds, “Existing American playgrounds are a disaster.”
Finally, I love this final quote worth sharing
“To play, you do not need a particular object or game or even a playground, you need only an assent, a grateful and glad yes.”
Kids need space. They need to be able to leave the reality of worksheets, sitting in desks all day, being forcefed useless knowledge and information and given time to explore, to learn, to grow in their own terms. We need adults to step back and give them the space needed to find themselves. I am not suggesting we let them be all the time and ignore them, but how often do we let them find their own path? We allow them to be distracted with devices and video games just as we do ourselves, but that is not what we are talking about.
If I can go back to my son. I wanted to intervene. But for three days my son did not touch his iPad. He is an iPad junkie and I partly to blame for allowing it to happen. He will waste a day away if I let him. For three days he spent 10-12 hours each day in this fort building, fixing, learning how to use tools, and just playing. It was wonderful.
IMG_2730
I would encourage you to read this book. If nothing else it tells a remarkable story of people who grapple with space, family, friends, growing up, and most important what it means to be human. At a deeper level I hope you rethink your ideas on play.
Last, next time kids want to play please give them the space to do so and maybe they will create their own fort or something even better.
February 23, 2023
I wanted to love this book, but I'm not sure I ever fully understood the points the author was trying to make about space and objects. It's a very unusual book- I suppose I should have focused more on the "A Meditation" part of the title. I read this because it was referenced in "Ordinary Insanity" (one of my favorites!) and I thought it was going to be a more straightforward look at the American fear of death through the lens of Savage Park. Her meditations on death are definitely beautiful at times, but I still found myself struggling to see the bigger picture quite often. Nevertheless, I still recommend giving this book a read if the topic interests you.
January 3, 2024
The first half of the book was really compelling. The descriptions of Savage Park and the ideas behind how playgrounds are designed (either for children, or for adults and their ideals of safety) was fascinating. I was hoping that in the second half we would get more into the why - why is it that Japan is able to have spaces of risk without concern and why Americans are incapable of this - but instead what I got was some vague thoughts about how Americans don't understand death. For all of the concrete facts she initially brought to the table, she abandons all of these in favor of memoir in a way that I found confusing and without tether (and usually, I love memoir).
July 20, 2017
This is a very interesting series of thoughts on a number of topics that I hadn't connected before. Death and play being the central focus but other ones like friendship, motherhood, and creativity, too.
It's a provocative exploration on the meaning of play and our obsession with safety that is central to Fusselman's thesis and it is beautifully woven into the writer's own experiences.
I am thinking of making this required reading for some people I work with.
What a lovely and unique small book.
It's a provocative exploration on the meaning of play and our obsession with safety that is central to Fusselman's thesis and it is beautifully woven into the writer's own experiences.
I am thinking of making this required reading for some people I work with.
What a lovely and unique small book.
January 26, 2024
3.5 stars. Very strong at the beginning but kind of loses its threads near the end. Still, I love Fusselman's approach to creative non-fiction. Her intermingling of personal narrative, research, cultural criticism, and observant tangents makes the happiness centers in my brain light up. :) In Savage Park, I think the most powerful thruline is the harrowing interplay between creation and destruction. The mythos of pure, generative creativity can be so seductive, there's a bit of internal whiplash when confronted with its inextricable link to destruction.
February 24, 2019
The title is accurate. This is a meditation on the topics. It's the author's musings, and not linear or conclusive. I'm really interested in this subject, and Fusselman adds worthwhile ideas to the conversation, but I would have preferred a more structured format. Maybe the fact that I didn't care for her non-traditional writing structure just illustrates her point, and that does make me smile!
December 20, 2019
Play freely at your own risk. This is a book about mortality from a parent's point of view by considering a reasonably anarchic playground in Tokyo. It contains the idea that mortals, including parents, children, and babies, can and do die. As with the two other Fusselman books I am aware of, this is wonderful and everyone should read it. Thoughtful and weird and honest, with the right balance of eclectic, personal, and academic. Worth it for Katie on the trampoline.
March 31, 2023
I came home from the bar to finish reading this book! I love play and playgrounds and moving through lowercase-s space and thinking about how yeah it would be so fun if weddings had an active spin, a “shall we go?” instead of an “I do”! Let’s go!
June 20, 2025
Boy, this book could really benefit from some editing! The title held some promise of some real dialogue but the but really jumped around! Literally every paragraph was a different thought train, more like diary entries than any real research on the topic. Disappointing!
September 12, 2017
Disjointed ramblings intermixed with a handful of somewhat interesting cultural comparisons between the U.S. and Japan. A quick read but not really worth the time. Strange.
August 31, 2022
This was a bit different than I expected, but very interesting nonetheless. There were some aspects I wished she’d delved into further, but still worth the read for me.
March 10, 2023
“it was possible for the two of us to do this action together only if each one of us, individually, first did something alone that was internal, and invisible”
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