The Camping Trip That Changed America

The Camping Trip That Changed America

Author: Barb Rosenstock

Illustrator: Mordicai Gerstein

Publishing Company: Dial Books

Copyright Date: 2012

34 pages

Nonfiction

                I originally picked up this book just solely based off of the title and cover. As I started reading I was absolutely amazed by the content. The illustrations are beautiful and because I was not previously familiar with this story, I was able to learn all about The Camping Trip That Changed America. The book starts out by introducing Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir, they both “shared a love of the outdoors. They both loved a good story, too. And that was enough to change America.” After Roosevelt read one of Muir’s books asking for help from the government to save the vanishing forests, he asked Muir to take him on one of his trips out west to explore the trees himself, and Muir did as the president asked. On their trip Muir showed Roosevelt giant sequoias in the Mariposa Grove, Glacier point, and Yosemite Valley. At the end of his trip, Roosevelt knew what he had seen had to be protected, but how?

                Reading this book, I was absolutely mesmerized by the illustrations. These illustrations made this story come to life. As a future teacher I know that this book will be one of the first I buy to put on my shelves. Gerstein brings Roosevelt and Muir’s trip to life through what seems to be a combination of paint and ink pen. I have never seen illustrations so beautifully done as these are. The majority are double spread and Muir uses the pages as his canvas to bring these landmarks to life. The text is located at the top and bottom of the page for the majority of the book. Overall, Gerstein’s work made this book for me. The story is absolutely wonderful as well, but the illustrations have me reading the book over and over again.

                As previously mentioned, I already plan to have this book in my future classroom. While reading, I not only just enjoyed the story, but I was able to connect this book for use in the classroom as well. Ideally, this book would be used with lower and upper grades. I feel that second through sixth grade would understand the content the best. The first way I would like to use this book within my classroom would be in a compare and contrasting unit. I would have my students compare Roosevelt with Muir. The second way I could see this book being used within the classroom would be within a science unit on land formations. This book not only describes the men’s trip throughout several different areas, but the illustrations accompany this information nicely. Yet another way I saw that this book could be used within an elementary classroom would be when learning about national parks. This book would be excellent to accompany a science lesson of this sort.