loppear reviewed Children's Special Places by David Sobel
charming, approachably academic
4 stars
An educator studies middle-grade kids exploration of and place-making in their neighborhood's hedges, woods, and interstitial empty lots as they begin to range away from home from age 8 to 11, and combining this small study with theory and his and others adult recollections of the role of secret, self-created, organized, and usually private dens and playspaces, centers this form of development in the preparation for a social self to emerge.