A few months from now, we Bartons are going to Boston for a vacation, and I’m resisting the urge to flood our home, molasses-like, with Boston-related books. I’ve got a unique talent for running a vacation into the ground in the planning stages, so I’m really trying to watch myself.
But I have introduced a trickle of Boston books, some of them extremely obvious:
- Make Way for Ducklings
- Trumpet of the Swan
- The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere (the version illustrated by Christopher Bing)
- Beneath the Streets of Boston: Building America’s First Subway
- Joining the Boston Tea Party (Time-Traveling Twins)
If you’ve got any titles to suggest to prepare 8-year-old S and 4-year-old F for their Massachusetts debut, lay ’em on me.
In return, I’ll gladly offer a list of Austin-related picture books:
OK, so, I could probably use a little help here, too.
Check out JOURNEY AROUND BOSTON FROM A TO Z and CAPE COD AND THE ISLANDS FROM A TO Z, both written and illustrated by Martha Zschock. Martha has done JOURNEY AROUND books for many of the major US cities, but these two are our favorites (of course!).
Martha and I are related by marriage (our husbands are first cousins), but I would recommend her books even if we weren’t. They are tops.
Loree
Chris, I’ll have to dig out the list I made last summer when I thought we were going to Boston last fall to see an old college pal of mine (we didn’t, sob…). What I found myself wishing was that Leonard Marcus had done a Beantown version of “Storied City”. Hey, just an idea but would Roger at Horn Book or his staff has such a list tucked away?
I had the A to Z books, and your list so far, and the ones I can remember right now are “86 Years: The Legend of the Boston Red Sox”, “Sleds on Boston Common” and “We’re There!: Boston”.
I don’t know how much Tea Party stuff you want, though… (though the I Can Read “Boston Coffee Party” book is cute).
Have fun!
Ooh, thank you both! I didn’t see anything at the Horn Book’s site, but I did find this list, from Boston Online.
Carol Harris’s A Place for Joey is a historical novel written around the molasses flood in Boston’s North End. Maybe a little old for an eight-year-old.
Robert Lawson’s Mr. Revere and I is a historically caricatured and thoroughly enjoyable look at the outbreak of the Revolution from an equine point of view. I bet it would make a good readaloud.
A couple of easy-readers by Nathaniel Benchley, Sam the Minuteman and George the Drummer Boy, follow young soldiers on opposite sides of the first fight of the Revolution. Pretty good history for that reading level.
For the rural landscape, McCloskey’s Blueberries for Sal and Yolen’s Letting Swift River Go have their picture-book charms.
Thanks a bunch, John. Must.. restrain… self… from… getting… all of ’em… now.
Urgl. That should have been “have”, not “has”. Maybe contact Roger by email to see what he might have tucked away.
Also just ran across this, “What’s the Big Idea?: Four Centuries of Innovation in Boston” by Stephen Krensky, apparently just out.