National Parks of the USA: 1 Hardcover – Illustrated, 5 July 2018

This is such a beautiful book. We actually bought it for our baby and hope that he’ll enjoy right through primary school. The pictures are just stunning and we are learning a lot from it too!

Great gift

Living in the U.K. I haven’t heard of the majority of these National Parks. Very enjoyable to gain knowledge of these beautiful locations, great artwork too!

3.5★"Get ready for a big adventure! On your journey through the national parks, you’ll find mind-boggling wonders, from the continent’s biggest peak to a mile-deep canyon, dark swamps filled with critters, and volcanoes that pelt lava straight into the sea. Creatures big and small abound in these wild lands, from thundering bison to tiny seahorses. The parks protect some of America’s most spectacular landscapes, wild animals, and precious plants."The font used is artistic and pretty, but I think it might be hard for young readers to decipher. And I'm not sure the lack of photographs and the colours used in the illustrations will actually inspire children to want to visit the parks.Having said that, this would be a lovely book for anyone who's already visited some of the parks. Without meaning to belittle the artwork, this is more the kind of thing I've seen in high-quality tourist brochures that are sold or given to visitors with maps and guides. In other words, a souvenir of what they have seen, or are about to see, in real life.The artwork is a unique, flat style with a limited palette of colours, depending on the landscape. I say limited, because these beautiful places are far brighter and less subdued than the illustrations show.I know, I know, there's the internet of all things and images and someone can show the real pictures to children. But if this is meant to introduce children to the wonders of the US National Parks, I think they need to see the natural beauty, not a stylised interpretation.The real Grand Canyon and Yosemite are much more colourful and spectacular than these illustrations would suggest. And "suggest" is what they do.The marine environments are blues and greens, the southwest is reds and rusts, the mountain country is browns and dark greens. Each section of the country is introduced with a map of the country and inserts where the parks are for each section (Eastern, Central, etc). I was pleased to see the Virgin Islands and Hawaii there, since I (like many, I imagine), think of parks you can drive to. Silly, I know.There is a full-page illustration for each, often including a few people for scale, and then there is a following page featuring some wildlife, plants, weeds, poisonous creatures and such.The information is enough to raise awareness and conversations, and the details may send older kids to look for more. There's a big index and a wildlife quiz at the end.It is very pretty. My Goodreads review includes some illustrations at the end.Thanks to NetGalley and Quarto Publishing / Wide-Eyed Editions for a copy for review.

I chose to look at this book as I don't have much knowledge of America's national parks. This isn't really something we see a lot about in Britain. I was pleasantly surprised at how detailed and in depth some sections were for a book aimed at children. This was informative and I finished reading it feeling I had learned something without it being too in depth as to be off putting for any young readers.I could see how this could be used for a topic on geography, preservation or environment. It would be interesting to discuss this book with a UK class of children as we really don't have anything close to the scale of the US national parks. One of our most visited national parks is The Lake District, an area you could fit inside Lake Superior alone around 40 times. The scale is just insane when comparing these parks to what we have here. Yellowstone is almost a thousand times larger than The Lake District, an area we deemed large enough to call it a district! In fact, you could fit all our national parks into one of these parks. A good topic for geography and mathematics in this sense I suppose.The only hesitation I had to begin with in viewing this book was the illustrated versions of something that already has such natural beauty. It seemed to defy logic in using illustrations when photographs could have been used. However, the artwork here is excellent and I soon found that this worked perfectly well.A good book overall. I could see this being useful in class.