Books About Yosemite and More

There are some great books if you want to learn more about Yosemite, the surrounding areas, and the people who helped create these National Parks.  

The first book, is one that was on all grade levels summer reading suggestions, The Camping Trip That Changed America by Barabra Rosenstack.  Click here for a summary on Goodreads.  I can't say enough about this book, I just love it so much!  I loved learning all about Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir's camping trip.  And how this lead to these wonderful breath-taking places being protected and able to be enjoyed for many generations.  


Watch the book trailer below. 

While my family and I were traveling in Yosemite National Park, I was thrilled to see a sign about the camping trip.  It was the site of one of their stops overnight.  I had to stop and get a picture of the sign and the field where they camped.

     sign about the camping trip

field where the two men camped

When we traveled up to Glacier Point I also read that they camped up there too.  Just seeing the views that we saw, I can only image what it looked like when they were there.

view of Half Dome from Glacier Point

To learn more about John Muir, I just recommend the book John Muir: America's First Environmentalist by Kathryn Lasky.  Click here for a summary on Goodreads.  There was so much that I learned about John Muir from this book.  It starts in Scotland, where John was a young boy.  The book talks a lot about his love on nature, but you also learn that he was an inventor.  My favorite invention of his an early-rising machine.  This was a clock that was attached to a bed.  When the "alarm" was set on the clock, a pulley system would set the bed on end so the person would have to get up.  Some days I could really use this!  The rest of the book takes you through his life and his journeys.  This book is a wealth of information about John Muir and a great introduction to him and his work.

Two really good books about Yosemite National Park are Letters Home From Our National Parks: Yosemite by Lisa Halvorsen (click here for a summary on Goodreads) and Welcome to Yosemite National Park by Pamela Dell (click here for a summary on Goodreads).  Both of these books provided lots of facts about the national park.  There are excellent photographs in each book. These are a great introduction to Yosemite, if you are not familiar with it.

my dad with some sequoia trees

For a great introduction to sequoia trees, read Giant Sequoia Trees by Ginger Wadsworth.  Click here for a summary on Goodreads.  This book has some great pictures and information about these giant trees.  Seeing them in pictures does not even come close to seeing them in person.  They are just so big and while you are walking among them I felt so small.  Each day that we hiked among them, I just couldn't believe my eyes!  One thing that I found very interesting was the bark in not hard like our trees.  The bark on the sequoia's is soft and squishy.  

All of these books are available through the public library.  Many of them you will have to put on hold as they are owned by libraries outside of St. Mary's County.  It doesn't take a lot of time for them to come to whatever library you request.  Visit the public library site by clicking here.  Would love to hear if anyone checks out any of these books.

Since this post ended up being a long one, I'll talk about books about San Francisco in another post.

Happy Reading!!

Miss Hazuda