It talks about the way children (and adults) like adventure stories, relating this to the fact that every person's childhood is an adventure through an unknown, only gradually discovered territory of land and relationships. So many children's stories are about children dealing with things in situations where adults are only marginally present, and an important part of progress through childhood is to live in and explore the adults-nominal world each child also inhabits at times in his or her life. (The title really foregrounds the idea that this is a boy's concern, but the text is more general, and I think applies to girls as well.)
I like the idea.
The article also laments the way that children no longer get to go outside and play as much in the U.S. because we're so worried about them eating dirt or being kidnapped or getting hit by cars. I've heard this concern before, and it does seem unfortunate. I spent a lot of time running around outside as a child, having bold adventures in what seemed like vast expanses of unexplored wilderness (ah, the cow pasture across the road! the fallow wheat fields!), and I remember those days fondly.
Kids should get outside sometimes, right?
The piece includes a grim tale of two children living on the same street a few houses apart who had never met, presumably because they never went outside to play and run up and down the street (although one can also imagine a blood feud between their parents, just to keep things lively).
The moral is, live next to unexplored wilderness and kick the kids out into it once in a while. Sadly, this is not that easy for many people.
Also, be sure to warn the kids about the dangers of getting eaten by mountain lions if you are out in the wilderness. This information from a study at UC Davis suggests that the old advice about holding your ground if you do see a mountain lion may be faulty: you might want to just run for it.
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