Children's Books for Parents and Teachers - book reviews and suggestions for parents and teachers.
Travel

From Alabama to Zanzibar, anyone who travels knows just how informative and life-altering trips to new places can be. Use these scenic books to capture students’ enthusiasm for excursions and get them to explore the thrill of traveling through reading. Simply flip the pages to join characters on journeys past and present, near and far, real and imaginary.

Amy’s Travels
Publisher: Creative Minds Publications

Come join Amy as she travels to all seven continents. Amy’s Travels, based on a true story, teaches the geography, culture, and diversity of the world through the eyes of a young child.


Angel Spreads Her Wings
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin, 1999

Angel’s stepfather has announced that he is taking the family to Greece to visit his parents. Angel, “the worrier,” has a lot on her mind. Will she survive the airplane trip? Will she be able to communicate with her grandparents who don’t speak English? In this sixth book of Delton’s popular series, Angel’s worries turn into fun adventures.


Gully’s Travels
Publisher: Scholastic, Inc.

Gulliver, an affable but snobbish Lhasa apso, lives at a fashionable Manhattan address, enjoys opera and looks forward to yearly trips to Paris where he reconnects with Chloe, a Maltese with “eyes as black as raisins,” while “his” professor enjoys a nightly tête-à-tête with the beautiful Madeline de Crecy, who is allergic to long-haired dogs. When Madeline accepts the professor’s marriage proposal, Gulliver is dispatched to live at the doorman’s “tasteless, overcrowded,” no-frills apartment in Queens, with kids who treat “Gully” like an indestructible plaything. Gulliver, believing he’s been kidnapped, …


Henry Hikes to Fitchburg
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin, 2000

Inspired by a passage from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, this story follows two bear friends who take different “routes” to get to the town of Fitchburg. Henry decides to walk, while his friend plans to work to earn the train fare. Each turn of the page offers a look at two different ways to reach the same goal. This book also includes information on Thoreau, his writings, and his literary friends, such as Louisa May Alcott and Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose names are used as characters.


How to Make a Cherry Pie and See the U. S. A
Publisher: Random House Childrens Books

IN THIS EXUBERANT companion story to How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World, our young baker sets her sights on a cherry pie. She heads off on a round-the-U.S.A. journey to find all the materials she needs to stock her kitchen: New Mexico for clay (mixing bowl), Washington for wood (rolling pin), Hawaii for sand (sand? to make the glass for her measuring cup, of course). In joyful art filled with small vignettes and sly humor, two-time Caldecott Honor winner Marjorie Priceman takes us on a cross …


How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World

A trip to the market is how most bakers buy the ingredients for an apple pie, but not in this book. Readers will take a delicious trip around the world to gather the finest foods. First, your students will board a steamship to Europe to gather Italian semolina and elegant French eggs. Then they’ll coast to Sri Lanka and trek deep into the rain forest for cinnamon. After hitching a ride back to England for milk, they’ll dock in Jamaica for sugarcane and parachute into a Vermont orchard to pick …


Miss Rumphius

Before she was called the old Lupine Lady, she was known as Miss Rumphius. But long before that, she was simply Alice, a small girl who lived in a city by the sea. After listening to Grandfather’s stories of places near and far, Alice dreams of traveling to those places — and beyond. Grandfather tells Alice to make the world a more beautiful place as well. After many years of adventure-filled travel, she settles in a house by the sea. Students will enjoy globetrotting with Miss Rumphius and finding out …


Molly’s Route 66 Adventure: An American Girls Collection

Route 66 may be the best way to see the U.S.A., and your students are sure to get their travel kicks by reading this fictional keepsake. In 1946, ten-year-old Molly McIntire takes a road trip with her family. She collects a scrapbook of souvenirs and memories, including photos of well-known people, state postcards, national park ticket stubs, and dinner receipts. Through Molly’s backseat perspective, readers will learn that Springfield, Illinois, is not only the home of Abe Lincoln, but also the home of Cozy Dog hotdogs! Comical events, such as …


Stowaway
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2000

When eleven-year-old Nicholas Young secretly boards Captain Cook’s ship Endeavor in Plymouth, England, he’s more than just a stowaway — he’s a runaway! To escape a violent employer and harsh father, Nick settles aboard Cook’s ship which is sailing to Australia. His secret hideaway is known only to a few seamen — bribed to keep silent. Inevitably, Nick is discovered, and he spends the rest of the journey proving he is an able-bodied seaman. Based on true accounts, Hesse carefully supports this 1768 historical novel with journal entries, real dates, …


Subway
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)

Come along for the ride as a little girl and her mother hop on the subway. From spinning turnstiles and musicians performing on the platforms to people hopping off and on and lights flashing past in the tunnels, the sights and sounds of the subway have an energy all their own. Anastasia Suen’s sprightly text and Karen Katz’s brightly colored patterns and lively perspectives combine for a pitch perfect celebration of an underground train ride, where the hustle and bustle is only part of the fun.