Member Reviews

National Parks of the USA is a visually stunning guide for young readers! The parks are divided by region and each feature includes the state/territory, founding year, and acreage. The crisp and modern graphic design layout includes wildlife/plant species native to the area, natural phenomena, and interesting facts.
This is an excellent book for young readers beginning to show an interest in nature and our national park system filled with brief but exciting descriptions and lovely artwork.
Thanks to Quarto Publishing Group/Wide Eyed Editions and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

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This book is gorgeous. As a lover of national parks, I enjoyed seeing all of the beautiful illustrations and stories of the parks. This book would definitely make any child want to see parks. The national parks are split up by regions and include descriptions of some of the parks along with the wildlife and highlights that you would see there.

Highly recommend!!

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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I received a preview digital copy of National Parks of the USA by Kate Siber. A lovely first look at National Parks for children. It includes many of the well-known parks with common facts along with some lesser known ones.

The layout of the book is easy to follow with maps of regions then each park being given a two-page spread. The art work is wonderfully done with the area’s landscape colors being primarily used. The animals and landmarks are realistically drawn, but I would have enjoyed seeing some photographs too. Children may not have that preference. The text is clearly written for third grade or higher to read independently. The way the author included more of the senses in the descriptions was exceptional; not just what you would see, but also hear and smell too.

After this close look at National Park, I have no doubt children will be asking to visit the one that caught their interest. It would be a great addition to a classroom library but also one for a child’s personal one, too.

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This book is fantastic! The information is interesting, thorough and laid out in smaller increments in a very logical easy to follow manner. The artwork is amazing, page after page! I would highly recommend this book for nature-loving children or families that travel to National Parks. I think this is a must-have for elementary school libraries!

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Our family is very active in going to several National Parks. Our favorite happens to be the Great Smoky Mountains and we could spend days there if we wanted to! So many of the book has many parks around the USA and some we have never been to! The pictures are absolutely gorgeous and it makes us want to take a road trip and visit many of them! If you have children who love to visit different parks, this book is for them!

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What an amazing way to introduce children to our National Parks! And given the myriad threats to these national treasures, the timing for such a book couldn't be more perfect.

As a kid, I grew up in a town that is literally called the "Gateway to Yosemite", so it should be no surprise that I spent a lot of time there growing up. Since those days, I've been to all of the National Parks on the West Coast, and I dream of taking my children to see them as well, so we can enjoy them together. These days we live in Maine, and we hope to make it up to Acadia this summer! My point is, my love for these natural treasures runs deep, and I thrill at anyway I can foster a deeper sense of excitement about the parks within my children. This book is a stupendous way to connect children with the wonders that are our National Parks (particularly children who might not have easy access to a National Park!). The illustrations are perfection, and all the information about the habitats in each park is fantastic. My children are going to go wild over this book when I get my pre-ordered copy in July (can't wait!!).

This is a MUST have book for kids. Heck, it's a must have book for ME ! And I plan to be gifting this book to all of our first-grade (and maybe second-grade) teachers in the upcoming school year. MUST. READ.

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Even though this book is directed at children I personally enjoyed it myself and learned a few things.

I love going to National Parks. I am a huge history buff, and many of the parks feature historical buildings and stuff. A National park is not just a playground and picnic area, like most community parks. National Parks are a great way to learn about history, battlefields, as well as wildlife and plant life of the area.

This book shows you by region some of the National Parks, it also give you tidbits about what you will or possibly could see while visiting the park.

The book is illustrated all the way through ad kids from probably 7 to 10 would enjoy this book, and could use as a guide book while visiting the National Parks listed.

I received this book from the Author or Publisher via Netgalley.com to read and review.

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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.

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I received this book from Netgalley in exchange of an honest review.

See my blog for some examples of the art in this book. :)

OMG, you guys! This book is just so stunningly beautiful, gorgeous, and lovely that you won't be able to stop reading. You need to soak up all the beauty that this book offers.

This book features a ton of national parks all over the US. From Yosemite to Denali to Death Valley. Most I already heard about, but mostly by name, and thanks to this book I discovered a few new national parks that I definitely need to see more of, so I will be finding maps and photographs real soon through google. But the parks that I already knew were still fun and interesting to read about. To see when it was founded, or to read about phenomenons happening or weather stuff.

The book is separated in several parts, East, Rocky Mountains, Central, Southwest, Alaska, West, Tropics, and then that is again split up in National Parks in those specific parts. Each part gives us a map and points us to several parks or notable events or notable people. And then we get a gorgeous illustration introducing us to a certain park from that area/part, and then another 2 page spread with all that you can find there. Animals, weather, history titbits, about humans living there, grasses/plants, and much more. There are illustrations all over the place and a small bit of text to go with the illustrations. I loved the illustrations, but I have to say that the text was also well written. Not in a boring matter-of-fact way, but in a fun way that really makes you want to know more (and so I have browsed google a few times when I wanted to know more).

It is, as expected from the subject, US-centred, but I had a bit of a laugh at the last note in the book. Yeah, sure, let me just go outside to a national park in the US. Or go out to the mountains (what mountains?), tundra (we don't have that I believe), deserts (um...). Oh, I can visit the beach, though I am sure that is no way as spectacular as those in the US. :P And until someone makes teleportation a thing, I am not going to be able to go to the US/national parks there. A trip to the US isn't cheap. Oh well, there is always google, and we have some national parks here (though not as varied as the US ones are).

The illustrations, oh boy, guys those are just too gorgeous. I just love their style, and I just can't stop looking at them. Even now, after I finished the book, I still am looking back at some pages with big heart-eyes.

All in all, READ THIS ONE! You won't be disappointed. This is one book you need to have in your collection, I know that when I get the chance I will be buying it on Amazon as well. This book needs to be on my shelves.

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What I really love about this book is the format. Information books can be really overwhelming if presented in blocks of writing (not to mention a tad on the boring side!) but by breaking up the information into short chunks and providing a relevant illustration (which is helpful for those of us who have never seen some of these features before!) it really draws the attention and allows the brain to chew it over a bit. Another element from this book that I did like was the little fact box that includes a map of America with the National Park marked on it, the state/s it is in, the year it was founded, and the size of the park in acres.

On a personal note I did enjoy this book. It's one I can pick up over and over to read! Also, I'm glad that it featured National Parks that I hadn't heard of before which made it all the more interesting as now I want to go and research further.

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I liked the formatting and style of this book. The illustrations were beautiful and the book had a lot of information without being overwhelming. It is a little too high level for my students but I can see older elementary age enjoying it.

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National Parks of the U.S.A. is a wonderful collection of facts and intricate, textured illustrations highlighting some of the more popular national parks in the United States.

The book focuses on one region of the United States at a time, showing a blurb of each national park and where it's located on the map, and then features some of the more notable ones with a double-page spread of a larger illustration and summary, followed by another double-page spread with more details and tidbits about the park's interesting features, such as animals, plants, geologic formations, weather, Native American history, and more.

Many of the more popular parks are featured, such as Yosemite, Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, Denali, Death Valley, the Badlands, etc. I was also glad to see my home state of Maine featured by way of Acadia.

Even though I'm kind of a homebody, this book made me want to travel! It's a great way for kids to learn more about the amazing natural wonders of our country, as well as some of the history of their preservation.

(Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy.)

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Detailed review coming soon; love the art style! It has a very travel-poster quality to it! That being said, I do find the cohesive color use might have compromised the uniqueness of each scenery, then again, perhaps I'd have trouble differentiating photos anyway, so I can't really judge. Overall it's very informative.

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Access: downloaded through Netgalley for free in exchange for honest review.


Review:

A great offline Wikipedia pages about each state park with an artistic twist. The illustrations are engaging and fun to look at. The cursive may be hard for students who aren't accustomed to reading / writing in cursive. But it's done well enough that kids should be able to puzzle out what is being said.

This offline Wikipedia pages are styled in a scrap book fashion. Each state park is introduced with a vignette that is colorful and appealing for readers. Usually I prefer books for kids with actual photography but this can slide through as it's super adorable.

Recommend? Yes - definitely good for a classroom setting, road tripping or just for a gift.

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A great example of how to integrate cultural awareness with beautiful illustrations in an effort to teach as well as entertain.

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This book is geared for kids, but has plenty of info for the adult as well, starting with a brief history of how the park system came about.
After a map showing the locations in the east, each park gets a few pages, the first a stylized poster-like painting, followed by stats and facts. The same scenario is then played out with the central, southwest, Rocky Mountains, and West, although the Virgin Islands seems to be misplaced. At the end is an A-Z of animals and an index, as well as a plea to help protect the parks.
It’s pretty to look at, and the information is nicely presented. I’m not happy with the font, which looks kinda like italics but tougher to read, but everything else was well done.

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A survey of all of the US National Parks. Each park is given a two sentence description on a map of its region, then 3-4 parks from that region get a 4 page spread with a general look at each one’s highlights and flora, fauna, geological and archeological things found there both common and rare.

Done in an illustration style that is reminiscent of the classic posters for the National Parks, this is an attractive and informative guide for kids (and adults) to all of the US National Parks. I found it interesting to see which parks got highlighted (mostly the most popular ones) and what flora and fauna for those highlighted parks were featured. I have been to almost half of these parks and I don’t think I would’ve chosen the same animals to feature. For example, the species of pupfish featured on the Death Valley page is the species very hard to see instead of the Salt Creek pupfish which is easy to see and still pretty unique. Another example would be that ground squirrels at Bryce Canyon are EVERYWHERE, are unique to that region, and yet they don’t get a mention. However, cottontail rabbits, an animal found all over the US, do get a mention, and personally I never saw a rabbit at Bryce during our visit. I would've even picked pronghorn antelope, another animal we saw at Bryce multiple times, over rabbits. I think it would be better to get kids excited for animals they are actually likely to see instead of the rarely spotted critters, unless they are animals only found there and/or are endangered. But that’s just my personal opinion. And not to say that easily spotted critters never get highlights, many of the parks’ pages do highlight easy to spot critters. Parents just may need to be aware of this so they can help the kids not get all hyped up to see an animal that will likely never be seen. I'd suggest visiting the website for each park to get a better idea of the animals you can keep a look out for during your visit. Again, not that this book isn't worth reading. It is beautiful to look at and quite informative. The short intro to each park seemed to be spot on from the ones I’ve visited. A great pick for budding naturalists or families headed to one or many National Parks in the near future.

I received an ARC of this title from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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This book is amazing. The illustrations are wonderful. My son loved the drawings. I also loved how the writer organized by the National Parks by area. I would love to have a copy of this book. This would be a wonderful coffee table book for both children and adults alike. They could actually do other books like these, maybe different countries and what can be seen/done in that specific country. It will be sort of a travel guide for families with kids.
Thank you #NetGalley for this wonderful book.

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This book about the national park system in the United States is packed full of information. It is beautifully illustrated with maps, pictures etc. Each section of the US is profiled, and then a few parks in each area are profiled with more facts about plants, animals, some climate and other interesting facts. The USA is divided into the following sections: East (East Coast), Central (the Flyover states), Rocky Mountains, South west, West, (Pacific Coast), Alaska and the Tropics (Hawaii and the Virgin Islands). I enjoyed learning more about the National Parks and have picked out a few places I would like to visit. This book could be used prior to a vacation to plan a trip, when teaching about protecting our environment as well as just to learn more about the US. This would be a good book for a public or school library.

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National Parks of the USA is written by Kate Siber and illustrated by Chris Turnham. It's a highly recommended and absolutely delightful children's book.

As an interactive story, children will learn about national parks across the United States. Some of the cities featured are Everglades, Great Smoky Mountains, Badlands, Grand Canyon, Death Valley, Mesa Verde, Rocky Mountains, Channel Islands, Glacier Bay, etc.

This book is divided into seven geographical sections: East Coast, Central, Southwest, Rocky Mountains, West Coast, Alaska, and Tropics. Throughout this book, there are maps and graphics of national parks, as well as fascinating facts.

National Parks of the USA is geared towards younger readers, particularly elementary school students, yet all ages will benefit from reading this book.


Note: I received this book from NetGalley, which is a program designed for bloggers to write book reviews in exchange for books, yet the opinions expressed in this review are my own.

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