author
Kennedy Holbrook
A largely elusive late-19th-century author, best known for a lively guide that turns children’s spare hours into experiments, crafts, games, and practical projects. The surviving book has an easy, hands-on spirit that still feels inviting today.
1 Audiobook
How? or, Spare Hours Made Profitable for Boys and Girls
by Kennedy Holbrook
About the author
Very little biographical information about this author could be confirmed from reliable online sources. What is clear is that How? or, Spare Hours Made Profitable for Boys and Girls was published by Worthington in New York in 1887, with a preface dated October 1886.
In that preface, the writer explains that the book grew out of activities created for children in the author’s own family. The result is a cheerful mix of handicrafts, amusements, experiments, and make-it-yourself projects aimed at keeping children usefully and happily occupied.
Because so few dependable details about Kennedy Holbrook seem to survive online, the work itself gives the best sense of the author: practical, encouraging, and interested in learning by doing. For readers browsing older instructional books, Holbrook stands out as a voice of patient Victorian-era creativity rather than a well-documented literary personality.