This book completes the trilogy that includes The Kids Cottage Book and The Kids Campfire Book. The successful format (evoking the Boston Children’s Museum Brown Paper School series) is that of the other Kids Can handbooks: fairly substantial content, good clear layout, and the trademark green and black print on buff recycled paper.

The miniature landscapes by Heather Collins on the cover offer clues to the Canadian origin of this book: a lake, small pine-covered islands, a conifer forest, and kids wearing very untrendy practical cotton clothing. The “land action” chapter shows woody hills and small villages and places for hide-and-seek and scavenger hunts between tree houses and a lapping lake, making it apparent this is intended as a cottage book and not an inner-city resource (although the chapters on indoor games and sidewalk games are illustrated a bit more ambiguously). Things could have been more inclusive: any kid who’s played Capture the Flag after dark on a school playground knows the thrill is the same, even if the playing field is asphalt.

The contents are laid out in sections: land, water, and indoor activities, and pastimes and amusements for one or two (including card tricks, juggling, and homemade versions of bingo and do-it-yourself Pictionary). A little more background would have been nice, such as some sample rhymes for counting out, in case you’ve forgotten your Edith Fowke. But we’re well served by lots of domino variations, rules for poker, tips for bocce/boule, and instructions on laying out a croquet lawn and horseshoe pitch. The suggestion of running in rubber boots to play field hockey (called “bootin’”) seems optimistic, even if the point is to provide shin guards. The section on co-operative games is small, and games in the remainder of the book that avoid heavy competition could perhaps have been marked by icons.

Equal time is given to Ben Johnson and Craig Nettles (in the sidebar on cheating), and we get the patriotic assertion that Canadian James Naismith invented basketball. There are little sections for the Korean history of battlecock and the Greek origins of jacks. The prime market is the Canadian cottage family, and that population is well served by this tasteful, friendly guide.