BootsnAll Travel Community

Adding a couple more books that we picked up in Florence at the museums. If one is just going for for a short visit, it might be worth special ordering them before going:

"Florence a young travellers' guide" ( ISPN 88-09-02018-90) and "Florence playing with art" ( ISPN 88-85957-12-9).

I am not sure if I mentioned it before or not, but we also love "Art Fraud Dectective"which is a really fun way for kids to learn more about art.

I was re-reading this thread (love it!) and had a couple more thoughts.

My three year old is not reading, but LOVES National Geographic, which leads to some interesting discussions.

I also have a book called Travel with Kids, published by Footprint Guides, which is primarily a guide for adults to help choose destinations, it covers most of the world and has loads of pics. It also has a page for kids on each area including recipes, books, movies etc about or from the country and kid friendly facts. We're still in the very early stages of planning, so my six year old likes to browse through it and choose where she wants to go.

WT, it might be worth trying to join the library when you come to the UK. You need a proof of address, but if you are staying a while it might be possible. Our local library is great. Also, charity shops sell books pretty cheaply here.

Thanks Wallop! I will look into the library idea as we really do miss libraries. We are going to spend some time in English speaking countries this year, so that should make it easier in the book department.

We loooove online libraries and have really gotten in to ebooks and audio books, so i am going to do my best to not buy any more, but i know I will end up buying some. I am really thrilled that we have the books that we have even though it is a big pain to pack em up and sort em and such for our travel time vs our wintering time. My daughter gets so much out of them and misses her endless supply when on the road.

The ebooks and elibraries will really help this year.May not even need a real library, but would be fun too!

I've rediscovered some great books that we bought in Malaysia a few years ago. They are cartoon books, written by a famous newspaper cartoonist called Lat - a national institution in Malaysia. These books are called Kampung Boy, more Kampung boy etc and are the story of his childhood in simple line drawings with a few words. They bring to life the experience of growing up firstly in a small jungle village and later in Ipoh, a medium sized town and describe all the things that Lat and his friends got up to and are full of humour.

Since we dug them out of a cupboard our kids have been poring over them.

We really had a blast with Harry Potter all through the UK. My daughter actually read the first one at 4 1/2, but I wanted her to wait until she was a little older before getting into the others that seem a little darker.The UK was a the perfect time to get lost in Harry Potter!!

There is a Harry Potter walk in London, but the best part was going to Hogwarts and learning to fly in the very place that Harry did and where they play quiddich.

Even on our tight budget we had to succumb to buying a Gryffindor robe and HP style broom ( that was cheap!) and my thrilled 7 year old "flew" all around Hogwarts ( Alnwick castle where a tremendous amounts of the scenes were shot).

It is not really a book about England, but I have to admit it was quite cute seeing our 7year old read her "Order of the Phoenix" on a double decker bus or even better while going down the Cam on a punt at Cambridge!


Reading and seeing Shakespeare was also a big hit in London including at Shakespeare's house in Stratford and seeing King Lear at the Globe.

There were more ( like Elizabeth) but these two giants were the favs for our 7 year old this year in England. So much fun to run into so many English books this summer as we have been away from English speaking countries for two years now.

Of course, we had to do just a bit of Jackie Wilson too...which is a very English pre teen passion.