Fifteen Minutes Outside by Rebecca Cohen

I will admit to picking up far more of these kids of books than I actually read. You know, the "it's really easy to make significant life changes by just doing this One Easy Thing." Many of these seem to start out as a blog, though I don't know if this is the case with this one. 

The first "do one thing" book I read was Being Julia Child. At the time I was in grad school and had just picked up a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking at a planned parenthood book sale in Santa Barbara, one of the most unrealistically beautiful places I imagine I'll ever live. But back to the book - I had started cooking these recipes both as a way to learn to cook (it was FAR BETTER than anything on the cooking channel) and an excuse to invite people to the house (there's only so much cream one should eat in one serving). Reading that book I was profoundly disappointed: here I was slaving away at a dissertation, and this woman simply blogged about the thing I was already doing, and had far more people read her work WHILE making money than I ever would. 

My first reaction to this book was very similar to Being Julia Child - why didn't I write this?!?! Or if not me, than a couple of enviro-types that I know. The answer is most certainly a topic for another post, but I am happy that I did not put down the book in the early chapters. The only niggling complaint I have as I continued to read this book is the amount of self-promotion in it: my preference would have been to put these things in the back of each book or chapter, with a small paragraph describing her products. I get she needs to hawk her wares, I just don't like it to get in the way of my reading.

And on to the meat of the book! Each chapter is simply a list of seasonally appropriate activities to get you and your kids outside for 15 minutes. Kind of like Things to do with toddlers and twos, but with an outside focus. These lists were great. In addition to a wide variety of activities, they were generally appropriate for a range of ages and interests and were easy to implement with little or no equipment. These are indeed my favorite kind of activities, especially if they are only going to last 15 minutes. Sure your kids may like some of these suggestions and do them for hours, but if they don't, at least there's not a big time, energy or equipment investment.

Would I buy this book? I don't know. After reading it, I would probably use it most if it were a laminated sheet for each month even though I likely needed the book to flesh out some of the ideas the first time I made it. Even better: a spreadsheet of all of the activities, then you can check the ones that would work for your family (anything with a hose is out in our mountain desert, for example) with boxes for you to add ones that work for your area/environment. Oh look, I made another product to sell!