101 Games to Play Before You Grow Up

The Walter Foster Jr. Creative Team has come up with a great reference for children's games. Some will be new to readers, while others are childhood favorites. As a grandmother, this will be treasured book when the grandkids come to visit. As a parent, the 101 games will be sure to keep your children busy and happy indoors or out. I highly recommend "101 Games to Play Before You Grow Up" for all ages whether your or just young at heart

Brilliant idea. Loved reading this book and could get a lot of fantastic ideas from this book if you were to buy it.

I run an after school on Wednesdays. I will be using this book for the program next few weeks. I have a feeling some of the kids haven't played the games in the book.

Wonderful resource for those looking to disconnect their children from technology for a while and leave the screens behind. the games are simple but fun. The instructions are clear and I like the idea of rating each game as you play.

This book contains fun games for kids to do. The games easily identify several key components of the game: inside/outside, group size, age, level of activity, etc.

The book feels like a very well researched/designed blog article. By that I mean, the activities in here feel like they could be found with a well crafted google search. At times this feeling is frustrating (why include Monopoly and dodgeball in the book, that feels like filter). However, I could often justify this as the games had cute pictures that will help younger kids identify good games. The descriptions are also well done, much better than I'd expect from a blog.

Back to negatives. About a 1/3 of the book is dedicated to card/board games which seem like filter. When this is combined with games that require 4+ people (if you have 4 kids and they can't think of a game they are probably not playing nearly enough) or are too old/young there aren't too many games to choose from.

One another hand (is this a third mutant hand?) I did find half a dozen new games to play with my daughter and that certainly is valuable.

All in all this is a good book. It is certainly worth picking up from the library. It also might be worth buying, especially if you can score a deal.

I like how this touched on games that really let kids be kids. It's a fun addition to any library.

I was expecting this book to be similar to the 1001 best video games, but I was greatly surprised. Yes it had some video games, but mostly it was games you play with other people like Tiddly Winks, Duck Duck Goose, etc. It was about movement, and memories as much as it was about keeping busy. I think this book would make a great gift for someone with kids. I can see families making it a point to play a game a week/month as their child grows. Wonderful Book and idea.

My Thoughts: This is a great resource for discovering games – new and the ones from our childhood – to play for kids of all ages. For all those days that kids are bored or for ensuring a new way of fun away from the screen!

What I liked: Everyone is most likely to discover new games or games lost from their childhood in this book. The book includes a mix of indoor and outdoor games with a good percentage of both. Each game includes the how (instructions to play it), the what (materials and number of players needed, related games), the where (where can it be played), and the details (age levels of players, tips, and fun facts about the game). This makes it a really cool, fun, and informative reference book of games.

What were the cons for me: Some of the games seem similar or repetitive; about one-third of the book was devoted to board games and while I do agree that board games also need a revival of a sort in today’s obsession with video games, having a fewer of the board games and more of the other type of games included (games with no need to buy anything else) would have made it all the more better.

Rating: B-
Reading Level: 8- 11 years
Reread Level: 4/5
Disclaimer: Thank you to NetGalley for the digital ARC of the book