Child's Play Sport in Kids' Worlds

"Messner and Musto have pulled together a powerful collection of essays that offer panoramic insight and riveting detail. The voices of kids are truly revelatory and powerfully demonstrate children's cultural fluency within the constraints of age and other inequities. Child's Play is a rare achievement that centers kids' experience in sports while using it as a crucial prism onto other major sociological projects."- Allison Pugh, University of Virginia
"A much needed contribution to the fields of childhood and sport studies."- Sport in American History
"A carefully crafted and meticulously organized anthology, Child's Play provides a much needed research agenda for studying physical activities and sport participation among young people, and serves as a valuable source of information for any parent or adult concerned about youth sports."- Jay Coakley, author of Sports in Society: Issues and Controversies
"Together, these essays present an understanding of youth sports supported by research data and ethnographic data that share a child's voice. This convincing collection recognizes the culture of youth sport and its bearing on the growth of youth. It is for anyone interested in youth sports... Highly recommended."- Choice