This book of beautifully photographed vintage playground equipment is gorgeous! It has the feel of a work of urban exploration (google it), with its worn and weathered structures looking forlorn and abandoned. The equipment is photographed empty, sans children, and in situ; most have a corresponding sales flyer or advertisement reproduced on the facing page, offering diagrams, specifications, pricing, and sometimes children, clad in various plaids and knee socks, modeling the equipment. The book is sectioned by decade (1920s-1970s). The tone is nostalgic, and the photographs of the metal slides do indeed bring back the wincing feeling of a hot slide on one's bottom and bare legs. The book is an absolute treasure. If you're over 30 or so and ever played on a playground, you'll want to flip through this book! ( )

This collection of photographs of vintage playground equipment is fascinating. The juxtaposition of today's photographs with original marketing materials from when the equipment was sold is especially interesting. Why was this equipment designed in such a way? How was play seen differently by adults then? Anyone participating in a redesign of their local playground should read this book. Others merely interested in reminiscing will be enchanted by it. ( )

The photos in this book are spectacular! I especially enjoy the close-up shots that show the great craftsmanship of the old equipment. The vintage ads next to the photos add some context to the photos, however, I had hoped for more captions with the photos. In her forward, Susan Solomon mentions playground equipment sometimes being based off of art or current events going on at the time, and it would have been nice for a few detailed descriptions next to some photos to go into this thought further. Overall a great book that I'm pleased to add to my permanent collection! ( )

This book has beautiful photographs and lots of information about a fairly obscure subject--historical playground equipment. The photographs are supplemented by pages from the original catalogs from which the equipment was originally purchased. ( )

The photos in this coffee table book are spectacular and interesting to look at. Looking at old photos of playground equipment from my youth, and earlier, was a real walk down memory lane.

However, the almost total lack of accompanying commentary, except for a brief introduction, made this book a huge disappointment to me. Even a bit of text introducing key ideas from each era of playground equipment would've been extremely helpful.

Even though the book is organized in chronological order, this book is definitely not a history of playground equipment. As its title indicates, it's a celebration, consisting of basically whatever playground equipment the author could photograph before the equipment was removed. Where photos weren't possible, old postcards were substituted.

Interesting but it could've been so much better. ( )