Our town has a big July 4th celebration every year with a parade, a brass band by the town docks, and fireworks at dusk. Our family participated in all of the festivities and had a great time. There is a small bookstore in town and my wife and I know the owner and some of the employees, so whenever we’re in town we stop in. They’ve got a great kids section that our two-year-old loves to explore.

I found a great book by the editors of Popular Mechanics called “The Boy Mechanic”. The summary on the back of the book is headlined by the phrase “Return to an era of curiosity & ingenuity.” It’s a great little book with over 200 simple projects from the early 1900s. I’ve got several books of the same theme of simple, do-it-yourself projects for kids, and they add a lot of depth to the courses I run for adults. To me, the essence of bushcraft is making, building, and doing things with what you’ve got. If I find one new idea in a book I figure it’s a good investment.

Other great books in this genre include anything by Dan Beard, the late founder of the scouting movement in the USA. If you work with kids, or have kids of your own, such books give you lots of ideas for what to do on a rainy day.