How to Do Nothing with Nobody All Alone by Yourself: A Timeless Activity Guide to Self-Reliant Play and Joyful Solitude

A handbook on how to avoid boredom, a primer on solitude, a child's declaration of independence.

Remember how to fold a paper airplane?

What to do with a discarded umbrella?

How to make a pin piano?

You don’t? You’ve forgotten? Or you never learned these things in the first place, to forget in the second place? Well, Robert Paul Smith remembered and set it down just for you―and everyone else―these things and many others, like broken-umbrella bows and arrows; and slings;and clamshell bracelets, and the collection, care, and use of horse chestnuts.

This is a handbook on how to avoid boredom, a primer on solitude, a stand-in for "screen time." This is a child's declaration of independence. Smith tells you “how to do nothing with nobody all alone by yourself”―real things, fascinating things, the things that you did when you were a kid, or your parents did when they were kids. It’s a book for kids, but parents are not prohibited from reading it.