Kith: The Riddle of the Childscape

Description

Kith is Jay Griffiths's passionate polemic in defence of childhood. In Kith, Jay Griffiths seeks to discover why we deny our children the freedoms of space, time and the natural world. Visiting communities as far apart as West Papua and the Arctic, as well as the UK, and delving into history, philosophy, language and literature, she explores how children's affinity for nature is an essential and universal element of childhood. It is a journey deep into the heart of what it means to be a child, and it is central to all our experiences, young and old. 'Kith could have been written by no-one but Jay Griffiths. It is ablaze with her love of the physical world and her passionate moral sense that goodness and a true relation with nature are intimately connected. She has the same visionary understanding of childhood that we find in Blake and Wordsworth, and John Clare would have read her with delight. Her work isn't just good -- it's necessary' Philip Pullman 'Jay Griffiths writes with such richness and mischief about the one thing that could truly save the world- its children' KT Tunstall 'An impassioned, visionary plea to restore to our children the spirit of adventure, freedom and closeness to nature that is their birthright. We must hear it and act on it before it is too late' Iain McGilchrist Jay Griffiths is the author of Pip Pip- A Sideways Look at Time; Wild- An Elemental Journey; and A Love Letter from a Stray Moon, a novella about the life of Frida Kahlo. She is the winner of the inaugural Orion Book Award and of the Barnes & Noble Discover Award for the best new non-fiction writer to be published in the USA. She has also been shortlisted for the Orwell Prize and the World Book Day award.

Jay Griffiths was born in Manchester in 1965. She is the author of Pip Pip, Wild, A Love Letter from a Stray Moon and Kith. She won the Orion Book Award and the Barnes & Noble Discover Award for the best new non-fiction writer in the USA. She has also been shortlisted for the Orwell Prize and the World Book Day award. Jay is a contributor to various publications and platforms including the Guardian, London Review of Books and the Radiolab podcast. Her memoir Tristimania will be published by Hamish Hamilton in May 2016.

Jay Griffiths is one of our most poetic and passionate critics of the ways of civilisation. Provocative, illuminating and shamelessly romantic -- Theodore Zeldin Scintillating, passionate, supremely honest. Adults and children need more books like this * Literary Review * An impassioned, visionary plea to restore to our children the spirit of adventure, freedom and closeness to nature that is their birthright. We must hear it and act on it before it is too late -- Iain McGilchrist Jay Griffiths writes with such richness and mischief about the one thing that could truly save the world: its children -- K. T. Tunstall Kith could have been written by no-one but Jay Griffiths. It is ablaze with her love of the physical world and her passionate moral sense that goodness and a true relation with nature are intimately connected. She has the same visionary understanding of childhood that we find in Blake and Wordsworth, and John Clare would have read her with delight. Her work isn't just good -- it's necessary -- Philip Pullman A subterranean book. We excavate it to refind the secrets of childhood, our own, and many other childhoods in times and places far from ours -- John Berger I didn't just read this book; I revelled in it. Playful and polemical, emotional and imaginative. As vital as play itself * Independent * Griffiths' understanding of how it feels to be a child is extraordinary, and her writing is as vivid as poetry * Mail on Sunday *