With National Parks Week coming up, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on a new book…a pop-up book on America’s National Parks!

What’s Inside

The coast-to-coast journey features 18 of our most popular parks, six as stunning pop-ups – Everglades (Kids Love Florida, pg 157), Great Smoky Mountains (Kids Love Tennessee, pg 61), Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Glacier and Yosemite national parks. Boy do these pages spring to life as you turn the page open fully and the three-dimensional scenes pop up. My kids oohed and awed, too. It really captured our interest to want to open the extra “envelopes” on each pop up page and read more.

Examples

See the endangered Florida panther peering out from a cypress grove, an alligator charging a white egret, a snarling grizzly bear protecting her cubs, adventurers in a dory boat crashing through the rapids of the Colorado River, all rising up from the pages of the book. Also springing to life are wildflowers of Great Smoky Mountains National Park; Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone National Park (rises 13″ above the page); a mountain goat, the iconic mammal of Glacier National Park, perches on a high cliff; and the grandest lodge in all of the national park system, The Ahwahnee in Yosemite National Park, invites you to enter.

However, at first glance, I was curious why the cover artwork looked a little old-fashioned. Answer: The pop-up art is in the style of 1930s WPA posters. Old School. The way these natural formations and the life that inhabits them has been for ages. No neon. No modern architecture. Just pure majesty…naturally.

I’ve only visited a handful of National Parks east of the Mississippi. Now my wanderlust (and my kids!) to explore the west is full throttle…

America’s National Parks is available in two hand-assembled editions. The creative book is $34.95, and get this, the publisher donates $8.00 from every copy sold to the NPCA (National Parks Conservation Association). The goal is to Raise $100,000 for Parks.

Note: http://www.nationalparkspopup.com is the place to look around and order.