BootsnAll Travel Community

Heres a few I have found that we are enjoying...feel free to add anything that you have enjoyed and learned from:


Story of the world books

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0971412944/ref=pd_ys_i...F8&v=glance&n=283155

Babar's world tour

My tour of Europe by Teddy Roosevelt

earthsearch ( a kids geography museum in a book)

Shadow of a bull

picturebook dictionary

childs gift of art series ( small)
Leonardo & the flying boy
Degas and the little dancer
picasso and the girl with the ponytail
Camille and the sunflower ( van gogh)

It can't be done Nellie Bly a reporters race around the world

The great world tour

Melanie martin books


Around the world with phineaus frog

Horrible history series

Story of Ferninand

Haliburton books like "The flying carpet" ( True adventure stories from a world traveler in the 20's).

Charlotte in Paris

Linnea in Monets garden

getting to know spain and spanish

Eloise in paris

Tales from the odysesy( osborne)
Favorite midievel tales ( osborne)

Prince of the birds ( Spain)

don Quixote ( kids classic version)

count your way thru Japan,Africa,France,Greece,Italy etc

Great List! I have just ordered several of them.

A couple other ones that we thought were good are:

Miroslav Sasek's "This is Paris", "This is Venice", "This is London". There are several other ones as well.

The other one that I would suggest is Selma Lagerloef's "The Wonderful Adventures of Nils"

Wow ,finally someone who is interested in books! Thanks for your additions! I have found some more too:

Heres a quick list I just sent to a friend looking for books for her kids as they get ready to visit UK and Wales( some might be repeats & also apply to other areas):

How about" Lassie come home" ( lots about country life in Yorkshire),Peter Pan, a bear called paddington,St George and the dragon ( one of my favorites and a great read outloud),Canterbury tales,Titus rules,kings and queens of england and scotland,The hounds of Baskervilles ( sherlock holmes),Castle diary,the river at green knowe,The ultimate peter rabbit a visual guide to the world of beatrix potter ( lake district a MUST see),wallows and amazons, a childs christmas in wales,Castle,Aliki's book on Medieval times ( forgot the exact name),Dark is rising series,Horrible history book on romans,the string in the harp,life in a midieval abbey,the roman fort,knights and castles,shakespeare,theres a great one on queen victoria ,(but I can't think of its name),earthsearch ( a kids geography museum in a book),Katies picture show ( london art museum for young kids),Mike venezia series about art you will see,Art fraud detective ( fun book thtat teaches art put out by London National gallery),favorite medieval tales ( by Mary pope osborne who also does a great oddessy series),James Herriots treasury for children ( UK vet ...very Brit in stories & countryside drawings..lovely stories)?

Have I mentioned the time warp trio books? My childs enjoying "see you later gladiator" now & we just got ," Its all Greek to me" .A fun way to learn a little history. ( we will also get the Tut Tut one and your mother was a neanderthal.Also "you wouldn't want to be a roman Gladiator..gory things you'd rather not know" a fun picture book that teaches a lot in an entertaining kid way.

Just got a lot of great picture books on ancient rome too from the library ( the story of the world lists great ones) since we will be seeing lots of Roman relics.

The great world tour is fun way to learn ( puzzle) & we have really enjoyed the Barbar world tour book ( has a few words in many languages)& phineus frog." In English ofcourse" is a nice book about communicating in school in your second language at the first day in school ( based on a true story) which was not prep for my child who will be in a local school in Spain.

You can never have too many books !! My biggest problem is which ones to take ( I am working on my Mbag books that I will send as we speak!).

For older children (10s upwards) you could try Eva Ibbotson's Journey to the River Sea set in the Brazillian Rainforest and the fabulous Across the Nightingale Floor trilogy by Lian Hearn set in ancient Japan, which my husband and I enjoyed as much as our 11 year old. For little ones the Littlenose books by John Grant, which tell of the travels and adventures of a little Neanderthal boy, really went down well.

Thanks Nightnurse! I don't have much so far for places out side of Europe yet as thats where we will be for a few years so I have been focused on RTW ,history and background for europe primarily thus far.My daughter ( a big AG fan) has read the American girl book Jess which has some good info'story based on archeology and Belize and the rain forest.I suppose my list will be huge once I start looking for books on every continent!

I have a some more ( I keep finding them and forget to put them all down,but they're tricky to find ,so thought I would save some one else from looking as much as I do):

People by Peter Spier,

A country far away ( contrasting a child in Africa compared to western world),

Children just like me,

Around the world children,

How children lived ( a first book of history),

colors of the world books ( australia,china ,france,germany,ghana,india,israel,japan,kenya,mexico,russia,the navajo) ,

geography of the world,

the young oxford book of archeology,

Material world a global family portrait( I think a must read/see for everyone!),

the kingfisherhistory encyclopedia,

music of the world,

round the world songbook,

d'aulaires greek myths,

count your way around the world ( africa-swahili,canada -french,china,german,India ,japan,mexico).

Heres a couple of unique ones I just found that may interest someone ( guides for scientific traveler):

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0471555665/qid=1151114...ks&v=glance&n=283155

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0471952702/qid=1151114...ks&v=glance&n=283155

( Check around for better prices as they are not out of print as I heard about them from the authors son).

anything by Holling Clancy Holling

Thanks Mama-to-many,

Looks like he has some nice ones for the waterways in the US!

You know, I have found the book recommendations - broken down by destination, no less - on http://www.travelforkids.com. For example, check out their Japan section: http://www.travelforkids.com/Funtodo/Japan/japan.htm

I'm a librarian and usually just browse the books by subject area (i.e. type "fiction juvenile japan") in the catalog. There are so many titles it would be hard to list them all without weeding through a bit - which is why I like the travel for kids site. They do recommend great titles, generally.

Traveling kids need "point it"

quote:

Originally posted by static:
Traveling kids need "point it"

Oooh! That's cute! I'm thinking my point-n-show word-crazed toddler would have a ball with that book in any case.

quote:

I like the travel for kids site

I really like that site too ( and yours is fun too wabashcannonball!) but I find it missing lots of great places for kids ( like Morocco!) and sometimes missing really good books for the areas they do have.They do have some great books, but just missing some other great ones.

I am just always on the look out for great books for kids and do not find them all that easy to find.I love "Storybook travels" idea of using good literature to help with itineraries and think books for kids can do soooo much to enhance a trip before , during and afterwards to keep it alive.

I will repeat the list I left for Morocco in the thread above here just in case someone looks in this thread and misses the other. My philosophy is you can never have too many books.

I found a few good books for kids about Morocco if any one is interested:

52 days by Camel ,My Sahara adventure

Morocco in Pictures

Morocco enchantment of the world

The storytellers

Market

Ali child of the desert

Ibrahm ( Sales)


(We are bookaholics and sometimes I have to go to great lengths to get the books I want...the only real downside that I have found with fulltime travel in non English speaking countries with a young voracious reader....we do miss libraries and bookstores! )

We just found a nice one for Barcelona if he one is headed that way called "Tell us about Gaudi" by Bernat Cormand and illustrated by Fina Rifa.

It got the approval of my daughter who reads at about a 6th grade level, but would be nice for kids of all ages and even adults could enjoy reading it to younger kids.

I would have liked to have this before seeing the sites, but it is also a nice one for afterwards to help keep the memories fresh.

I hate to be too pragmatic about this... but books are heavy!

The best books we found were in the second hand english bookstore of whatever place we happened to visit. We'd read them and then trade them for other books. You often don't have too much of a choice... and there are very few young kid's books.

Because of this, we found the kids tended to read 'older' books because that was what was available: The Hitchhiker series, and the Dune series were the ones I seem to remember

quote:

books are heavy

So True!! I think a lot depends on how one is traveling. We keep a lot more in our long term rental in Spain than we do in our RV and we keep more in our RV than we carry with us when we just have backpacks on ferries and trains and such.

But always weight is a factor.Still they have been our greatest asset on our multi year trip around the world and what we have more of than anything else ( and most for my 6yo prolific advanced reader). Some books are just to be read before you go and when you come back to prepare for the trip and to keep it alive in a child's memory.

We have certainly used second hand book stores in many countries and have found some good things, but I would be in big trouble if I depended on them alone. They are VERY expensive and usually little choice, altho sometimes some good classics. They also give you VERY little for books that you sell to them.

I have a kid who always has a book in her hands and has had her own library card since 3 and used it mightily. She was reading Harry Potter at 4 , so always ahead,but I like to be very careful on what I let her read. So I have had to do constant research on books and want to get the best and most appropriate literature into her while I still have control.

Classics really work well and they can be read and reread. I must admit though that our RTW trip has really been enriched by books on the areas that we are seeing.

We are in Greece now and reading Greek myths. I hemmed and hawed about bringing the wonderful Greek Myths book that w have because it is big...but I am so glad that we did.

Our trip to Venice was sooo enriched by "Zoe Sophia's Scrapbook ..an Adventure to Venice" and "This is Venice" that we ended up following them some for our itinerary which made it richer. My child was actually reading one of those books as we took a ride on a gondola!

Maybe it is just me but I think books make the trip better for kids and adults.You can't always take them with you, but sometimes you can and it is worth it.

If you can find them, the Bantry Bay trilogy is excellent. They are chapter books, and thus a good read aloud for young children, but older kids enjoy them too. Also, the girls got hold of a couple of books of Uncle Johns' bathroom readers. They learned a lot from those books. The girls are getting quite an education, and it's not always stuff I want them to learn. Oh, and The Story of Ferdinand is my all time favorite kids book. It's the only book I've ever read that was perfect in every way.

Try the Magic Tree House series. They are fiction with history and science facts woven in. There was one all about the jungle that my daughter referred to regularly while trekking.

Children's books were very expensive in Southeast Asia. We found few at used book locations or book trade locations. However, I did find that classics like Heidi, The Jungle Book, etc. that have passed their copyright date were rather inexpensive to purchase. My daughter loved being able to discuss what she was reading with me (my childhood favorites).

quote:

Try the Magic Tree House series

YES! These are great books for young readers. My daughter had read the whole series a few years before we left, but I was still very sad to part with them when we took off.

I kept two of the Magic Tree books with us and I am so glad that we did. One was about a trip in time back to the Olympic games and meeting Plato too.

Even though she is well beyond that level now, she really enjoyed reading it the morning that we toured Olympia in Greece and I think it really added to her enjoyment.

It brought a kid level to the whole place.We put olive branches in her hair and she got to race her dad on the very track the ancients ran on.Books really help children connect to place:

http://www.soultravelers3.com/blog/E420B93E-FBAD-4926-A0C7-D0FD4CDE3A41.html

The other one we brought was about Pomeii and we are headed to Italy again as we speak making sure we experience that before heading home to Spain for the winter.

We were happy to find new kids classic books very cheap in Dubrovnik. I hear Florence has a good English bookstore that we will check out. Of course Paris has the fabulous Shakespeare and Company where they have tons of kids books too.

Sometimes the books we have found in Museums have been really wonderful. I always ask if they have an English version. We got a fabulous one in Athens that was made by the British Museum with lots of fun things on archeology for kids which helped with our ancient civilizations tour.

We just found a great book on the Magic Flute in Salzburg. We were seeing a lot of Mozart houses, music and operas , so it fit right in with what we were experiencing and made it richer. We found two on Mozart as well and I have listed or will list them on the blog.

Kids books...ah, love the topic!

For young kids

"Toot & Puddle" by Holly Hobbie (Scholastic)

Two little pigs are best friends. One likes to stay home while the other goes on a trip around-the-world. Despite their differences, they remain best friends.
It's very cute... The pictures are great... I love it!

Toot and Puddle are the best books about travel EVER. I regularly by them and hand them out for Christmas, birthdays, christenings, etc. And sometimes for graduations...

Buy them?
I didn't know there was more than one..
Very good then!