Fraser Brown is Professor of Playwork at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK, where he is Course Leader of the BA (Hons) Playwork. He was Director of the playwork training agency Children First, has held advisory posts with Playboard and the National Playing Fields Association (NPFA) and managed a range of projects for the North West Play Association.Michael Patte is a Distinguished Fulbright Scholar and Associate Professor of Education at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, USA. He is a past president of The Association for the Study of Play and co-editor of the International Journal of Play.

Rethinking Children's Play is a masterful resource of latest research and application on a topic of ever growing importance given that fact that today so many children are having to swim upstream for play and often are at risk of drowning.The book is well-written, cogent, and very engaging with wonderful transcriptions of interviews with leading authorities and boxed features giving examples of research, reflections on research, and suggested activities.The volume promises to inform and to inspire those who read it and who are in a position to act on behalf of children and in response to their need and right to play in different settings including schools, prisons, and hospitals.The reader can consume content on these and a host of other topics to gain fresh insights about how to think about play in ways to enable heightened sensitivity to the perspectives of children and innovative means to impact play directly or indirectly.

• Introduction to the New Childhoods Series \ Acknowledgements \ Introduction \ Part 1 – Debates, Dilemmas and Challenges: The Background to Children’s Play \ 1. What is Play? \ Part 2 – Contemporary Issues \ 2. Play and Schools \ 3. Play and Other Institutional Settings \ 4. Play in Informal Settings \ 5. Play Deprivation \ Part 3 – Implications for Children’s Lives \ 6. Playwork \ 7. Rethinking Play \ Bibliography \ Index

Fraser Brown is Professor of Playwork at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK, where he is Course Leader of the BA (Hons) Playwork. He was Director of the playwork training agency Children First, has held advisory posts with Playboard and the National Playing Fields Association (NPFA) and managed a range of projects for the North West Play Association.Michael Patte is a Distinguished Fulbright Scholar and Associate Professor of Education at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, USA. He is a past president of The Association for the Study of Play and co-editor of the International Journal of Play.

Rethinking Children's Play is a masterful resource of latest research and application on a topic of ever growing importance given that fact that today so many children are having to swim upstream for play and often are at risk of drowning.The book is well-written, cogent, and very engaging with wonderful transcriptions of interviews with leading authorities and boxed features giving examples of research, reflections on research, and suggested activities.The volume promises to inform and to inspire those who read it and who are in a position to act on behalf of children and in response to their need and right to play in different settings including schools, prisons, and hospitals.The reader can consume content on these and a host of other topics to gain fresh insights about how to think about play in ways to enable heightened sensitivity to the perspectives of children and innovative means to impact play directly or indirectly.

• Introduction to the New Childhoods Series \ Acknowledgements \ Introduction \ Part 1 – Debates, Dilemmas and Challenges: The Background to Children’s Play \ 1. What is Play? \ Part 2 – Contemporary Issues \ 2. Play and Schools \ 3. Play and Other Institutional Settings \ 4. Play in Informal Settings \ 5. Play Deprivation \ Part 3 – Implications for Children’s Lives \ 6. Playwork \ 7. Rethinking Play \ Bibliography \ Index