I feel this book is mislabeled. This isn’t really an intro to camping with your kids. I think maybe as a memoir this would be better received. Clearly the author has extensive knowledge but the advice and instruction is hidden within rambling anecdotes. It ended up feeling very scattered.

Family Camping is an eclectic and very basic guide to spending time outdoors with friends and family. Released 1st May 2020 by Rowman & Littlefield under the Falcon Guides imprint, it's 248 pages and available in paperback and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.

This is a very general overview of planning for and executing a camping trip solo or with any combination of family and friends. Most aspects of planning, choosing the best location for setting up camp, water, food, chores, equipment and more are covered and the subjects are arranged roughly thematically: eating, playing, and hacks and tips for more enjoyable safer camping.

There is not a lot of really advanced camping or woodcraft knowledge contained here. At the end of the day, this is a good, general, family oriented camping guide for beginning campers. The photography is well done, clear, and appealingly informal.

Four stars, wide ranging and does a good job of covering the basics.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

A good concept for a book, but a little scattershot in its execution. Ess has clearly camped a great deal, and he has vast knowledge gained from his experience. But to present this as a manual for parents looking for advice on camping with children is a bit misleading. Anecdotes are mixed in with advice in long paragraphs. I would have repackaged this as a memoir and just let Ess expand on his interesting stories. (And in some cases, finish them. He tells one story about camping with a group of young people who can't decide where to set up camp, as a jumping-off point to talk about how to select a campsite, but I could never find the end of the story. Where did they camp??) There's a chapter of interesting-looking recipes, though. And the photography throughout is lovely.

This is not presented in a format that will appeal to my patrons. While the information is there to make this a helpful resource, it needed organizational lists, graphics and dedicated areas for specific information.

Charlie Ess promotes a holistic approach to camping in this informative guide that could prove useful to any camper, with or without the need to plan for a family trip. The book begins by introducing the reader to its layout, with helpful tips and illustrative anecdotes set apart from the main text in colorful boxes. These asides, "Charlie Goes Camping," and "At-a-Glance," are elements to focus on and refer back to, collocated with the section of text exploring the relevant subject.

The chapters oriented toward camping appreciation for less experienced members of the family might be the most insightful and original. The author uses easily explained examples of activities and conversations to help family members adjust to camping and have fun while learning and participating. Helpful hints for buying camping gear are comprehensive, offering different options for different types of trips with different goals. The author repeatedly emphasizes the utility of knot-tying and provides useful, plausible examples. These are contrasted, however, against the author’s own experience in multi-week excursions, which you would have to assume are very uncommon among families picking up a book titled “Family Camping…A Night Outdoors with Loved Ones.”

Chapter titles can be misleading, or seem out of place or redundant: Chapter 7, “Grits and Fixins” is about 15 pages of recipes, which seem superfluous next to information about how to pick out a tent or lantern. A later section called “Camp Hacks” includes a chapter titled “Eat This Not That” which covers finding wild greens, berries and more about fishing (already covered in other sections). To start it all off, though, the author provides general and vague instructions about looking for mushrooms, with a brief warning that you need an expert with you (not an explicit warning that the touching some mushrooms is deadly.)

Concluding the book is a chapter on planning for the next trip. This section emphasizes the importance of making lists and keeping track of supplies and tasks. While this information is extremely valuable and often overlooked in camping guides, the included checklist should provide a handy essentials list that the reader can revisit over and over. It does include some important items like tent, sleeping bag, pillow and spatula, but the necessity of these items is arbitrary, ranging from a pencil sharpener and a mineral lens to a rain fly. Matches and lighters are conspicuously absent.

The focus of this book is scattered, and so is the valuable information it contains. Difficulty in locating succinct explanations on discrete topics makes this book best for inexperienced parents or caregivers who want to introduce themselves, as well as their children, to outdoor activities. Some of the techniques suggested in the text are useful for situations other than camping, and the best information in here is about achieving a greater appreciation for the outdoors, not for building your skills on longer hikes and camping trips.

Thank you to NetGalley, and Rowman & Littlefield for the ARC.

An informative read about the basics of camping, including fun activities, songs, and recipes. I wish some items were listed in a little more of a list sort of way, like what to bring and such, but otherwise it was a pretty good book.

Family Camping is a comprehensive guide with just a little bit of information about everything you can imagine when it comes to camping. I found it sometimes strange how information was organized, and I'm not sure exactly who is the intended audience- it's got a lot of basic information for newcomers to family camping, but leaves out a lot of what I would have considered essential information. But if you want a little bit about EVERYTHING camping, from campfire songs to choosing a campsite to a few basic meals, this book has you covered.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for this unbiased review.

More memoir than instruction. The description seemed to imply direction on productive camping with a young family, but the book carried little practical advice.