Part memoir, part manifesto, Children don't dissolve in the rain is about prioritising play. The importance of being playful, living playfully and being brave: trying things out, working things through and exploring feelings, nonjudgmentally engaging with humans with openness and creativity.

Adele draws from her own experiences with play - as a child, an aunt, a mother and a playworker - with lessons learned from Cuba, Cape Verde, Sweden, Canada, Ghana, Great Ormond Street Hospital and her home town, Birmingham. Her journey highlights play as arguably the most neglected, yet crucial, part of childhood and parenthood.

As a new parent, having a partner and then a partner and a child, and experiencing baby loss, she admits she sometimes forgets her own advice. She often re-realises the importance of play for her child's early brain development and for her own mental health.

At times heartbreaking, always hopeful, this book will leave you invigorated, informed and inspired to pursue a life full of play.

Author: Adele Cleaver
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Adele Cleaver
Published: 07/20/2021
Pages: 340
Weight: 0.67lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.00w x 0.85d
ISBN: 9781898068082

About the Author
Cleaver, Adele: - Adele Cleaver was born in Birmingham in the 1980s. She describes herself as a nomadic Brummie whose wanderlust has taken her to the likes of Lisbon, Accra, Tokyo, Salvador da Bahia, even Timbuktu. She now lives in Bournemouth on the south coast of England with her husband and four year old daughter. She started writing in November 2019 through an art therapy course she enrolled on after her second miscarriage. She began reflecting on her varied career in playwork and how her professional experiences helped her overcome some of the challenges of parenthood. She found her approach to raising their child very different from her peers: she makes play her priority. Her book is a playful manifesto about the importance of play: her play, her daughter's play and play in the community.