I am pleased to announce that my 2007 book No Fear: Growing up in a risk averse society can now be downloaded direct from this website as a pdf, thanks to my publishers Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
I am also pleased to announce that the mighty Playscapes playground design blog will be offering No Fear as a free-to-download resource. The offer coincides with that blog’s publication of the first of a series of design-related pieces of mine which are to be reposted on the blog.
Given Playscape’s profile amongst designers (and its stats, which are way better than mine) I hope that this new distribution platform will bring the book and its arguments to a whole new audience who may have missed out up to now.
I was planning to use this as an opportunity for a post reflecting on the book and its influence and impact. But first of all, it’s probably a bad idea for an author to write such a piece. And second of all, it just didn’t quite reach the top of the to do list.
However, the impulse to look back proved impossible to resist altogether. Some people said some nice things about No Fear when it first came out. Reviewers on Amazon appear to like it too. The print book is still available from several online booksellers and from Central Books, by the way.
I can also tell you that as of October 2012, just over 5000 copies had been sold. Sadly I cannot tell you how many times it has been downloaded, as my publisher does not have this information.
I do plan to return to one key topic from No Fear, and that is playground safety. I will say more on this in my next post.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, and to Paige Johnson at Playscapes.
PS
I do not own an ereader. So I am not the best person to give advice on how to convert a pdf file to a more ereader-friendly format such as epub. But it looks like there are cheap and easy ways to do this, judging by a quick google search using the search terms <Convert pdf to epub>. Any advice gratefully received!
Rethinking Childhood 
Fantastic! this ought to make the world a better place for children . . . . .and adults!
Thank you very much! It’s a great new!
Thanks Tim. I’m just writing a paper on risk and anxiety and who is responsible for children’s safety, so this is a really timely resource. Thank you very much for making it available in this format.
Reblogged this on Shane O'Mara's Blog.
Tanks for sharing your ebook. Can you provide us the portuguese version of it?
Congratulations for work.
Hi Sérgio – click here for more information on the Portuguese version. I do not think it is available as a pdf.
Thanks Tim – this will be a boon to the field and hopefully more educators, playworkers, designers and decision makers will have access to such an important tome in the development of resilient people and more attuned childhoods!
What a timely gift – thank you Tim! I’ll sadly miss your keynote talk when you come to Victoria, BC in May, but this is a topic that plays such an integral part in everything we do at RockyPoint Outdoor Education!