Review: Colorado ~ By The Way Book Series
We love to travel as a family. This year, we have trips to Florida, Utah, Colorado, Kentucky, and possibly Washington and Canada in the works. I also get to sneak away to Belize and Honduras next month (sans kiddos!). It’s fun to read travel books, and to introduce our kids to different areas of the country (and world!). So, we were excited to review a book from a new collection called By The Way Book Series. They generously sent us a copy of Colorado ~ By The Way to review.
Not only is this book designed to help kids explore their world, but it’s written from a Christian perspective. It has Bible verses sprinkled throughout, and the characters bring up the Scriptures in everyday contexts. For example, when the kids are helping out with farm chores, one of them shares Ecclesiastes 9:10, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.” I’m sharing that one with my kids!
We really enjoyed this book because we felt like we were taking a guided tour of Colorado! The kids in this story had a Coloradan native for a tour guide, who was well versed in the history of the area and had a vast knowledge about the wildlife! The book is fast paced, with the group moving quickly from stop to stop. They explore a lot of fun places including a working ranch, Four Corners, Mesa Verde, Pikes Peak, Cripple Creek, the Royal Gorge, Great Sand Dunes National Park, Cadet Chapel, Rocky Mountain National Park, Denver, and a fish hatchery. They covered a LOT of ground!
The kids in the story had the opportunity to participate in a LOT of fun activities too! Besides trail riding in the mountains, they rode a train in Cripple Creek, helped count mustangs, learned about the gold rush, rode the tram to Pikes Peak, stood on both sides of the Continental Divide, and visited four states at one time! (The mommy part of my brain kept counting up how much tickets for all the train, tram, and horse rides cost! lol )
We learned about a lot of Coloradan wildlife too! The story introduced the kids to mountain lions, marmots, Shetland ponies, beavers, red-tailed hawks, short-horned lizards, pronghorns, weasels, trout, mustangs, sage grouse, snowshoe rabbits, and bighorn sheep.
The By The Way Series currently includes 6 books: Florida’s Treasure Coast, The Smoky Mountains, Pennsylvania, Washington, Ohio, and Colorado. Four more are expected to be published in 2017: Ireland, New York City, Indiana, and Idaho.
I also loved that they included a little info about geocaching! We love to geocache so much that I wrote a blog post about it! Just today, we looked for a cache at a state park we visited. Such fun family time!
We will plan to pick up a copy of the Washington State book before our trip this fall! I found the Colorado book to be a great way to help plan our own trip, as well as introduce the kids to a variety of significant places and wildlife.
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