Awesome Books That Celebrate Summer Adventures

The Pacific Northwest is nature’s playground, and in the summer we all want to get out among the trees. Our styles vary from gentle walks at Carkeek Park or Schmitz Preserve Park (both within latte range) to primitive hike-in camping at a natural hot spring, like Goldmyer. Either way, a little fantasizing (with a good book) about living closer to the land is in order. “The Swiss Family Robinson” by Johann David Wyss is a classic example, but if the dated grammar and morality lessons are too much of a hard sell for your kids, try these contemporary stories instead.

Picture Books:

“Do Princesses Wear Hiking Boots?” by Carmela LaVigna Coyle is the first in a series of beloved books that reassure even the most precious princess that hiking, camping and rowdy outdoor activities are perfectly in keeping with a refined young lady’s decorum. In author Anne Rockwell’s “Hiking Day,” a young girl goes on her first family hiking trip up a nearby mountain and makes wonderful discoveries, such as toads and berries. “Backpack Explorer” (by the editors of Storey Publishing) is a take-along field guide that encourages young explorers to look and listen wherever they roam.

Middle Grade:

Kimberly Brubaker Bradley’s middle-grade books are powerful at any age. After their family disintegrates through death and divorce in “Halfway to the Sky,” 12-year-old Dani and her mother hike the Appalachian Trail together. Jean Craighead George has written a genre’s worth of books about youth living off the land alone. Try “Tree Castle Island,” about a boy’s solo summer in the Okefenokee Swamp, or if the heat gets to be too much, escape to the Arctic with “Julie of the Wolves.” Gary Paulsen also specializes in middle-grade wilderness survival stories. The best of them is Newbery honoree “Hatchet,” the first of five books about a 13-year-old’s adventures surviving in the Canadian wilderness. For a dose of practical naturalism, the “Curious Kids Nature Guide” by Fiona Cohen is full of facts about the Pacific Northwest environment, organized by habitat — forest, beach, backyards and others.

Young Adult:

Convincing teens to break their Snapchat streaks and go off-grid with the fam can be a challenge. In “The Other Side of Lost” by Jessi Kirby, social media influencer Mari realizes her whole life is for show. She sets out on the John Muir Trail to learn how to live for real. Your teen may not listen to you when you say that time in the wilderness builds character, but they might listen to a best-selling author whose memoir was adapted into a hit movie. Cheryl Strayed was 26 when she hiked 1,000 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail alone, but make no mistake, “Wild” is her coming-of-age story. The “Distance From Me to You” by Marina Gessner ups the drama with romance on the trail, animal encounters and the terror of getting lost. Finally, if you can’t make mountaineering fun, you can at least make it funny: “The Ascent of Rum Doodle” by W.E. Bowman is both a parody of and a classic within the mountaineering genre.