Travel-inspiring, non-fiction books for kids

One great way to prepare for a trip with your child, or to just get them interested in the world we live in and traveling that world, is to read books about travel, geography, and history. When I was a child, I read a lot of books about people and places all over the world, and I would like to share the fun of that with my kids now.

Inspiring an interest in the world we live in, can be as simple as looking through an atlas in book-form, or looking at maps online, or spinning a globe together.


Fictional books set in various places around the globe is another way to learn about the world, but there are also a lot of great non-fiction books you can read with your child (or let them read themselves if they can do that!).

Here are some non-fiction books I'm currently considering for my own kids:


The "Horrible Geography" books  
These non-fiction books about rivers, deserts, volcanoes, and much more contain facts and trivia about phenomena like monster lakes, earthquakes, and exploding volcanoes.

I'm thinking they might tickle my kids' funny bones while they learn a few things they didn't know before. I'll probably learn some things I didn't know too!


Miroslav Sasek's "This is..." books
This series of books includes This is Paris, This is London, and This is New York. These are old-school books, first published in the 1950s and 60s, and take the reader through some of the sights of each city. I know that they might be dated in some ways, but I find sometimes old-school stories appeal to kids just as much (or more!) than newer books. (Which is why kids still get excited by The Wizard of Oz, Madeline, and fairy tales.)

Books about specific places and sights to see in the world can also be a lot of fun for your kids and for you. Some books I'm looking to get from the library right now include

• My Life with the Chimpanzees, by Jane Goodall, which is both about the life of Jane Goodall, and Gombe, in Tanzania, Africa where she has studied chimpanzees for decades
• The Great Wall Of China, by Leonard Everett Fisher
• Tut's Mummy: Lost...And Found, by Judy Donnelly
• The Andes (Great Mountain Ranges of the World), by Charles W. Maynard
• The North Pole Was Here: Puzzles and Perils at the Top of the World by Andrew C. Revkin 
• Discovery in the Cave by Mark Dubowsk, which is about the discovery of the ancient cave paintings in Lascaux, France 

Non-fiction books about the history of various parts of the world might also appeal to your kids. Some that look pretty enticing to me are:

• Your Travel Guide to the Ancient Mayan Civilization, by Nancy Day
• Your Travel Guide to Ancient Egypt, also by Nancy Day
• City: A Story of Roman Planning and Construction by David Macauley, is part of a great series of books, including books about how cathedrals and the pyramids were built
• Magic Tree House Fact Tracker #10: Ancient Greece and the Olympics, by Mary Pope Osborne and Natalie Pope Boyce
• How We Crossed The West: The Adventures Of Lewis And Clark, by Rosalyn Schanzer