Cabin fever can ignite kids' 'old school' imagination

Nothing jump-starts the old brain like a cold, snowy day with a house full of eager-to-play-anything youngsters stymied by a "no more video games" edict.

"Every generation has something they used to play," says 45-year-old mother of two Marlene F. Byrne, founder of a suburban advertising and marketing firm and author of a series of books about old-fashioned games that kids used to play. "Games like 'Hide the Button.'"

Wham! Suddenly I'm transported to when I'm 5 years old and sitting on my Grandma Schembs' couch playing the "Hide the Button" game I haven't even thought of in decades. Grams would hide a button, and I'd search the room based on her clues of "you're getting warmer" or "you're getting colder." Her favorite hiding place for the button was in her sewing kit.

When siblings or cousins were added to the mix, we could hide the button in a grimy little fist and ask, "Button, button, who's got the button?" We could use that same button to play the stairway game of "School." Any kids who correctly picked the teacher's hand with the button moved up a grade and advanced one stair. Pick an empty hand and you flunked.

Forced to invent our own fun, we made up games such as "Lion-Hunting Buddies," a scary hide-and-seek search for a ferocious lion that had its own theme song and was even more frightening for those of us little kids under the impression we were "Lion-Hunting Bunnies." We played "Chippy the Chipmunk," "Are There Any Ghosts Out Tonight?," a snowy recess game called "Sockey" that was a combination of soccer and hockey, and myriad games where we modified rules to fit ages and environments.

"I'm afraid our kids will never learn how to play 'Kick the Can,' and all the games I used to play, " Byrne, who grew up in small-town Wisconsin, fretted to her husband, Brian, as they moved to the city for his job as a Chicago police sergeant. He told her to use her writing skills to record those games in the journals she kept for their two children.

Her desire to encourage unstructured play led Byrne, with the help of illustrator Jesse Graber, to found Project Play and capture those games in a series of books. Works such as "Treasure Hunt" and "Ghost in the Graveyard" include her children Matthew, almost 11, and Maggie, 9, as characters and are designed "to inspire families and neighborhoods to play backyard games that demand imagination and foster creativity so that children can channel those skills into their adult lives," Byrne says.

"I have a real problem with how structured we make our kids lives. They look at us and say, 'What's next?'" observes Byrne, who sees the value of letting kids pick teams, negotiate the rules and arbitrate disputes. "There are important skills learned here that we take into adulthood. With all the technology today, we are still going to need young people who have ideas and can create things on their own."

In that vein, she's inviting youngsters to enter her "Kids' Character Contest." Children who submit the rules and a story about the games they play could end up as characters in a new Project Play book. For details or to apply for the contest, which ends in June, visit the Web site www.projectplaybooks.com.

Without the video game systems or big-screen TVs, kids still build forts with blankets, play "Cops and Robbers," hop around while playing "Hot Lava," or even invent games such as "Marker Tag," "Alligator," "Camouflage," or the live-action version of their favorite video game.

Given all the options for kids today, it might be a tough sell to interest them in a game of "Button, Button, Who's Got the Button?" But if all else fails, you parents can pry kids off the couch and push them into action by explaining that you've already started a game of "Hide the Xbox 360 Elite Wireless Controller."