The Geography Of Childhood

In the early 1970s, a geographer named Roger Hart did a study of exactly where it is that children go during the daytime. For two years, he followed 86 children—all the children in a small town in Vermont, during the hours when parents were away at work. In this rural setting, nearly every child had a secret hiding place somewhere. He explains what the places were, and why nearly every child in town had the compulsion to make a secret place. He published his findings in a book called Children's Experience of Place, which is now out of print. (5 minutes)