The Games We Played: A Celebration of Childhood and Imagination | 
 enlarge | Creator: Steven A. Cohen
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Book
List Price: $20.00
Buy Used: $0.03
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Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 1103997
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 176
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 5.3 x 0.8
ISBN: 0743201663
Dewey Decimal Number: 305.23
EAN: 9780743201667
ASIN: 0743201663
Publication Date: June 12, 2001
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Book Description
If childhood is magic, kids have created its principal enchantment by dreaming up their own games, writing their own rules, inventing endless variations on anything fun. Bottle Cap Soldiers, Kid Crusher, Ring-a-leavio, Chinaberry War -- no one remembers the scores anymore and the rules changed as often as the players, but the strongest and best memories of childhood grow from the games we played. With this enchanting volume, Steven A. Cohen shares a collection of childhood memories from a host of stars, public figures, and writers, from President Bill Clinton and Al Roker to Jackie Collins and Rob Reiner. Novelist Brad Meltzer describes an ongoing series of increasingly lunatic dares he and his friends staged to determine the Craziest Kid in the World. Movie star Esther Williams remembers the dollhouse built by her father in the midst of Depression-era poverty, and the endless scenes she acted out with simple paper dolls behind its miniature walls. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Maraniss recollects a Wisconsin childhood in which his friends created a version of hardball called Five Hundred -- until they hit the ball into the zoo's elephant cage and the vast gray beast gobbled it down. As varied as these tales are, together they create a marvelous picture of childhood freedom and imagination. As Maraniss remembers, "There were no adults acting out fantasies of being major league managers. Childhood was for children." In an age when computers, television, and soccer practice all compete for a child's attention, these stories recall a different time -- when free time was actually free. We all have memories of the games we played -- memories so fond and so powerful that the events themselves could have happened yesterday. With this moving and hilarious collection, the simple joy of imagination introduces us again to the genuine magic of childhood.
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| Customer Reviews:
 The Loss of Imagination March 22, 2002
As an only child, I had plenty of motivation to use my imagination to create different games to amuse myself with. Most often these involved Legos, Matchbox cars, darts, and tennis balls, depending on the weather and location. Editor Cohen seeks to tap into that time in all of us, in this little stocking-stuffer type book which assembles the brief memories of writers and famous folks in (as the subtitle says), "A Celebration of Childhood and Imagination." While some of the entries don't really fit in that well with the overall theme (Jackie Collins and Lou Stovall's come to mind), most do evoke a sense of wistfulness and childhood innocence. The contributors recount in simple prose (and in two cases poems, and another, in illustrated panels) the games of their youth-from paper dolls, to neighborhood Olympics, to Chinaberry wars, and so on. It's the kind of book one wonders if could be done in 50 years now that children have much less unstructured playtime outside the home-something to think about.
 The Inner child December 28, 2001
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I loved this book. Like many of the contributors to this excellent anthology I played ball games; stood on street corners with a 'gang'and generally tried to mix in. But I had glasses from the age of 6, too much reading under the blankets with a torch so the rougher games were out for me. One pair of spectacles and it had to last! With this in mind, I eagerly read, nay devoured Glen Roven's account of his own childhood. I am, next year, a first time author - published in August 2002, but my first love has always been the theatre. That world of imagination that we all seem to lose sight of in the short-sightedness of growing older. Glen, if he'll excuse the informality, comes over as a cross between Mickey Rooney and George M Cohan, and no doubt the show was put on in the barn! His memories of putting on shows is priceless - the sequence with the glasses is a gem - and far from being reluctantly wheeled out to entertain the grown-ups this was one boy who you didn't dare to hold back. This was a kid born with a baton in is mouth and rhythm in his veins; his career since then has proved that. Childhood is the foundation of adulthood and we should never forget it. In our rush to mature we sometimes lose the inner child, with its imagination and open-eyed wonder on seeing something new, through eyes that are without cynicism and predudices. Short sightedness can be cured! Everyone should be encouraged to read this anthology, to realise what some of us have forgotten, the wonder of being a child, and the impulsivenss, sometimes recklessness of youth. Glen's account speaks to me, personally, on many levels, but chiefly in the world of the imagination of theatre. I urge you to read this book, latch onto the inner child, if needs be rake it forwards from the recesses of your memory, live your youth again and if the spirit moves you to do so go, fly that kite.
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