Praise for The Wild Path Home

Without question, this is the finest book on raising children I have ever seen. Today’s child emerges into a world of strife, loss, and fear. Regenerating life depends on transforming our beliefs and dictums about how to raise a child. Nature will determine if we are worthy to be here on Earth. Every child deserves to encounter, know, and love nature in all its intelligence, complexity, and magnificence. Such a child will realize they are nature and can transform the future for all children. 

—Paul Hawken, author, Carbon, Regeneration, and The Book of Life 

The Wild Path Home offers a timely and compelling guide for parents, educators, and community leaders seeking to nurture resilient, empathetic, and environmentally conscious children. The authors of this book provide a clear pathway for youth in cultivating stewardship and affinity with the natural and built world around us. It emphasizes the vital importance of unstructured outdoor play, offering children the chance to explore, take risks, and connect deeply with nature, all of which contribute to their physical, mental, and emotional well-being. This book equips readers with practical strategies to inspire the next generation to become active and engaged citizens who will foster meaningful relationships with all life. With an emphasis on respect, reciprocity, and responsibility, this book presents a vision of hope for the future. 

—Charles Hopkins, UNESCO Chair in Reorienting Education towards Sustainability, York University 

The Wild Path Home is a practical, tender, and inspiring resource for anyone who wants to deepen nature connection for children in their care. As a new parent working in the environmental sector, I appreciate how overwhelming it is to be raising a child during an intensifying climate crisis. With clear and joyful activities grounded in research and traditional knowledge, this book is a balm that gets us outside and into relationship with the world around us. 

—Brianna Salmon, Executive Director, Green Communities Canada 

The Wild Path Home presents a compelling vision for how we can reshape the way children grow up, focusing on respect, interconnectedness, and sustainability. This thought-provoking guide, which draws on Indigenous knowledge, offers a roadmap to nurturing a society that prioritizes health—mental, physical, and environmental—through deeper relationships with nature and one another. It is an essential read for educators, parents, community leaders, and anyone interested in the future of our planet and its inhabitants. 

—Alison Elwood, vice president, Ontario Society of Environmental Educators 

The Wild Path Home is truly a phenomenal resource for parents and educators alike. The profound power nature has on child development is well documented. This book provides a wealth of activities for connecting children with nature from birth and beyond. 

—Kathy Warner RECE, Program Manager, Peterborough Child & Family Centres 

In The Wild Path Home, visionary environmental educators Jacob Rodenburg and Cathy Dueck have provided an incredible tool for teaching young people. As the climate crisis escalates, fostering understanding of the natural world and problem-solving skills for children of all ages becomes critically important, and this book provides a delightful and grounded approach to both. 

—Tegan Moss, executive director, GreenUP 

The Wild Path Home is timely, as fewer children today have opportunities to become intimate with the land, water, plants, and animals that surround them. Jacob and Cathy give readers a helpful framework based on age-related landmarks and Indigenous ways of being. These landmarks provide hands-on ideas for enjoying time in nature with children, encouraging a sense of stewardship and kinship. I am looking forward to sharing this book with our early learning community. 

—Beckie Evans, Investing in Quality Peterborough, RECE 

The Wild Path Home offers a beautiful resource to help embed outdoor and environmental knowledge and care for the world around us, all connected to the natural development of young people as they go through education of all types. The age Landmarks help tie education opportunities to youth developmental characteristics from birth to age 17 in clear and helpful ways. Clearly written with Why and How sections, and highlighted with stunning photographs of the learning in action, this book is a delight to use and easy to implement for educators of children of all ages. 

—Jade Berrill, Director of Learning, The Outdoor Learning School & Store 

In an age of excessive screen time, growing social disconnection, and community division, The Wild Path Home offers a much-needed recipe for raising nature-loving, healthy children—kids who will grow into compassionate stewards of our natural environment, and sow seeds of love and kindness within their communities. I will eagerly use it with my own young kids, and in my work as a public health leader, advocating for solutions to health challenges that ground ourselves in our shared connection to nature and to each other. 

—Dr Thomas Piggott MD PhD, Medical Officer of Health; CEO, Peterborough Public Health; nature lover and Dad 

There has never been a more critical moment for community connection—with each other, with our more-than-human relations, and with our home, the natural world. This vital community collaborative is both the invitation AND the map along the path to an enduring connection—a wild way through the compounding and deeply interwoven crises we collectively face, both social and environmental. This guide affords inspiration, agency, and a critical next step. Through fun and authentic connection, this wild path invites us into the outdoors everyday, in all seasons. We can embark on this wild path home at every age and stage, letting our children lead the way. 

—Karen O'Krafka, Environmental Educator and Past-president, Council of Outdoor Educators of Ontario 

Any educator will find this book a valuable resource. The Wild Path Home is an inspiring guide to how children can become land stewards through age-appropriate activities. 

—Mikaela Cannon, outdoor educator and author of Foraging as a Way of Life 

In my consulting around North America, I often refer to the Pathways to Stewardship project as the most comprehensive community-based approach towards raising children to care about and take care of the earth. It's wonderful to see that they have now translated their fine work into this beautiful book—The Wild Path Home. I've always been most impressed by their creation of a set of developmental guidelines that provide guidance for parents and educators of all stripes. Presented here, the Landmarks are articulated in a remarkably accessible form and with lavish photography. These are enhanced with quotes for parents and educators about how they've implemented the Landmarks in their work. The Wild Path Home provides guidance that is inspired, sane, gentle, and, most important, effective. Grandparents, parents, and educators can use this book to help figure out what to do with children and students today to help preserve the earth over the long haul. 

—David Sobel, environmental educator, Professor Emeritus, Education Department, Antioch University 

This beautifully illustrated and well-researched book is an invaluable resource for educators, program planners, parents, grandparents, and anyone who wants to help children and youth develop a lifelong connection with the natural world. Readers will be excited about the hundreds of easy-to-implement yet impactful ideas for different settings and seasons. This essential guidebook is truly impressive! 

—Kristi Lekies, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Ohio State University 

We need this book more than ever. The Wild Path Home provides a joyful abundance of creative ideas for families, schools, youth programs, and whole communities to help children and youth engage with nature in ways that help them become healthy, resilient protectors of the Earth. Grounded in an evidence-based understanding of child-development stages and nature's benefits, offered through a climate impact lens, and informed by Indigenous wisdom, this is my new go-to guide. What a treasure! 

—Cathy Jordan, PhD, Director of Research, Children & Nature Network 

The Wild Path Home is an invaluable resource for parents and teachers, and youth programs of all kinds. With accessible, engaging activities, it provides adults with a framework and road map to raising nature's stewards of tomorrow—something more vital now than ever before. 

—Drew Monkman, nature educator and mentor 

This is a wonderful guide for any adults—teachers, parents, grandparents, youth leaders—looking to play their part in mentoring young people who will engage with, celebrate, care for, and help heal our planet. The Landmarks have relevance wherever this vital work is being done. 

—Paul Elliott, Professor Emeritus at the School of Education and Professional Learning, Trent University 

Many books offer ideas for activities that foster environmental literacy and environmental stewardship. The Wild Path Home does that abundantly, thus serving as a valuable resource. For everyone who wants to work with others in their communities to ensure that all children of all ages have meaningful experiences in nature, this book takes a significant step further by presenting a model for collaboration that can inspire and guide similar initiatives in cities and towns everywhere. 

—Louise Chawla, co-author, Placemaking with Children and Youth 

The Wild Path Home offers a comprehensive and inspirational framework for nurturing a sense of kinship with the Earth in the hearts and minds of children and youth. The book is beautifully written, the content research-based, and the suggestions applicable to various settings. This guide lives up to its name. 

—Ruth Wilson, PhD, author and retired educator 

Jacob Rodenburg and Cathy Dueck, pioneers in childhood environmental education, present a visionary yet practical approach to nurturing children's connection with nature. Their innovative Pathway framework provides a clear progression of experiences that cultivate wonder, respect, and responsibility toward the natural world. The Wild Path Home provides an inspiring framework for families, educators, and communities to raise a generation that understands their place in the world. 

—Myke Healy, M.Ed, OCT, Assistant Head of Senior School - Teaching & Learning, Social Sciences, Trinity College School, and Chair, Camp Kawartha 

We urgently need to connect more kids with nature and to foster an appreciation for the foundational role that nature has in all our lives. This book is so timely as we experience the joint crises of biodiversity loss and climate change. By providing children with age-appropriate stewardship and nature experiences, we are more likely to raise children who care for the Earth. Encouraging children of all ages to have a deep bond with nature helps to shape the kind of informed, compassionate leaders that the future so desperately needs. 

—John Hassell, Director of Communications and Engagement, Ontario Nature 

Aside from its evocative title, The Wild Path Home is a finely photographed and extensively field-tested treasure for anyone (parents, other relatives, educators, community leaders, and other mentors) who enjoys taking children and teens outdoors, i.e., home. It is a prescient reminder of what really matters in our lives, and the authors detail an impressive array of doable outdoor activities (from carefully handling earthworms to becoming a citizen scientist) for eight age groups from birth to seventeen years of age. This valuable resource is truly a pathway to stewardship and kinship. 

—Grant Linney, Career Outdoor Educator 

The Wild Path Home is inspired reading for educators and families alike. It provides those working with young people with a foundation, knowledge, and skills to develop children’s capacities for hope, kinship, and action in a changing world. Full of age-appropriate activity ideas, suggested resources, and photographs that beautifully illustrate key concepts, this book will galvanize individuals and communities to lead learning with the next generation that addresses local and global issues in impactful ways. 

—Dr. Hilary Inwood, Dept. of Curriculum, Teaching & Learning; Coordinator, Sustainability & Climate Action Network; Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto 

The Wild Path Home is just what we've been looking for. It is an inspiring and timely resource that reimagines the purpose of education in an era of ecological and social uncertainty. Rooted in principles of relationality, justice, and care, this book offers a powerful framework for parents, community leaders, and educators seeking to engage children in meaningful, transformative learning. It not only highlights the importance of land-based and place-conscious education, but also models how schools, homes, and community buildings can become sites of hope, resistance, and regeneration. I highly recommend this resource to anyone committed to teaching for a more just and sustainable future. 

—Anne Corkery, Assistant Professor, School of Education, Trent University 

The Wild Path Home digs deep into the research and understanding that environmental educators and parents have known for years. Spending time in nature and developing respect for the natural world leads to a closer relationship with nature, which in turn increases caring attitudes and a desire to take action to help our planet stay healthy. This book will be a valuable guide for educators and environmental mentors who hope to practise and instill kinship with the Earth. In the words of Jacob Rodenburg, “If ever there is an ethic we can teach our children, it’s the idea that both nature and people can share the same space, and both can thrive.” 

—Judy Halpern, Consultant, Learning for a Sustainable Future 

As an elementary teacher who is passionate about environmental education and feels a strong sense of responsibility to nurture a nature connection in my students, I have long wished for a resource like this. It not only outlines what I need to support and justify land-based education, but also acts as a practical guide that is tied to age and stage, so that I can use it in tandem with my curriculum as I plan learning experiences. When I am choosing how to approach environmental issues like climate change with young people, I worry about inspiring anxiety because I know that they are deeply concerned about the welfare of our planet. This guide is not only a source of practical action that I can take to counter my student’s fear, but also of hope as it focuses on inspiring a sense of wonder regarding our natural world. I have already used the Pathways to Stewardship and Kinship landmarks in my teaching for a number of years and look forward to having this guide as an accessible personal reference. I am also excited to offer it to my school board leadership as a planning tool for curriculum, policy making, and professional development for educators. 

—Sheila Potter, educator and naturalist