Pair Books with Your Trips
How Sarah Miller from Can we read? chooses children's books for family vacations.
Every month, I’ll be bringing you interviews from travel experts/caregivers from around the globe as part of Travel with Toddlers—because as we all know, every! kid! is! different! I want to include a wide range of voices here, so if you or someone you know would like to be featured, comment/reply and let me know.
My favorite place in town is our little local library.
Even though I’m their most chaotic patron—once I accidentally left an entire stack of checked-out books at the checkout desk instead of taking them home with me—I find time to go every week with my toddler, if we can. The library is MAGIC. We’re running up and down the stacks completing a scavenger hunt, or singing at a truly lovely storytime, or hanging out at sensory bin workshop, or meeting friends in the pretend play area for some fun.
Because there’s so much to *do* at the library, I don’t really get a chance to browse the actual books. Instead, I usually pick a seasonal-ish theme for the month and put a bunch of holds for pickup, which is why I’m so excited about this week’s guest: Sarah Miller, from Can we read? whose book recommendations I consistently check out and LOVE.
This week’s edition is chock full of travel-themed books for you to add to your library holds—and some inspiration for pairing reading with your upcoming trips to build excitement and provide a way for your toddler to process something new. (Also, it’s fun!)
Sarah Miller on Travel with Toddlers
Sarah and her daughters on a recent tropical vacation.
Books are one of my favorite tools as a primer for upcoming travel. That includes the how, like reading Richard Scarry’s Busy Busy Airport, but also where we’re going, like reading The Sandcastle That Lola Built by Meghan Maynor before going to the beach. Several weeks before a trip, I’ll start working in travel-themed books into our regular rotation, and of course offer a few new titles as “surprises” throughout the trip itself.
What I love about Sarah’s recommendations is that they include classics I remember from my childhood and new, delightful books from the last decade. Some of our favorite books she’s introduced us to:
Stand Back Said the Elephant I’m Going to Sneeze (1990). The silliest, laugh-out-loud children’s book we’ve read so far.
Each Peach, Pear, Plum by Allan and Janet Ahlberg (1999). A classic I had never read that my toddler can now recite.
Rah, Rah, Radishes by April Pulley Sayre (2014). A very silly vegetable chant!
Cricket in the Thicket by Carol Murray (2017). My ladybug-obsessed toddler loved this.
Here’s how Sarah approaches reading and traveling with her daughters:1
What is your travel "style" with kids?
I’m a planner. We rarely take spontaneous trips, even to places nearby. I have a Google doc folder with packing lists going back ten years. So maybe my style is a little uptight 😊 (Editor’s note: Packing lists are my love language! Right there with you.)
Once we’re off on our adventure, my goal is always to enjoy my kids and have as much fun as possible. Now that my kids are a little older, I can say it definitely gets easier. Your vacations become less of an arduous voyage like when you’re traveling with toddlers.
I like to use books to help prep my toddler for new activities, like flying on a plane. Can you talk about this practice a little bit for your own kids, and how that helps a trip go more smoothly?
This is how we live our lives and how I’ve always parented, from the time my children were babies. We connect reading to everything, and everything to reading. Going to the shoe store for new kicks? Read a book about it. Preparing to say goodbye to mom as she embarks on a work trip? Read a book about it.
So of course we do this when we travel. Sometimes that involves focusing on the means of transportation—we’re taking a train out west next April, so we’ll read a few books about trains ahead of time, both so they know what to expect but also so they can get excited. Sometimes that means reading about specific locations, like when we spent a week on the Yucatan Peninsula this past October, we read titles about Mexico beforehand.
I’m not too obsessive about this—if I can find books that fit, great, but sometimes I can’t, or I put them on hold at the library and they don’t arrive in time, or whatever. I look at it as an add-on, not a must-have, which keeps the practice of it light. I want to use books in a way that we all enjoy, not make it this rigid, didactic experience.
When you're traveling, you have limited space for things like books. How do you choose the right books to bring?
Well, let’s just say that I’d rather bring fewer items of clothing in my suitcase than fail to leave room for books. And the answer depends on where we’re going, and the duration of the trip. But on average, I bring 2-3 books if I have limited space, like when we’re taking a plane.
But if I have more space, I usually pack an entire tote bag—anywhere from 10-20 books, heavy on interesting images to look at and pore over, especially for pre-readers. I choose whatever I think will interest my children the most at that time, and I try to get books they haven’t seen before. One of my favorite pre-trip traditions is that I go to the library alone and load up a bag.
If you’re looking for specific destinations or subjects, the best option is to ask the children’s and/or reference librarians at your local library. Full stop.
Focus on the experiences you’ll have, rather than destination-specific titles.
With my own kiddos, I always focused on the experiences they might have in a specific place or things they might see. If we were heading to Florida, I’d find a book about playing on the beach, or the marine life we might find on the shore.
If we went to Australia, I’d look for a title about koalas and kangaroos.
If we were visiting a city, I’d find a book about skyscrapers or subways or urban animals (I just have to mention Wild in the Streets: 20 Poems of City Animals by Marilyn Singer here!)
This strategy doesn’t have to pertain to animals, though animals are an evergreen topic that appeals to the youngest readers. I kind of make a mind map—here are all the possible destination-adjacent topics—and go from there.
The best travel books for toddlers are…
Anything related to the how of traveling—I’ve never met a toddler who isn’t into transportation books. A few recommendations for this age group:
With my own children, sometimes I went beyond books for certain needs. Daniel Tiger was the end-all, be-all in my household for years and I relied on the episode, “Tiger Family Trip” more than once!
The best bookstores and libraries to visit…
Carmichael’s Kids in Louisville, Kentucky is one of those magical children’s bookstores—a bit like Kathleen Kelly’s The Shop Around the Corner in the movie You’ve Got Mail—that are now so rare.
As for libraries, I’m a big fan of your local branch. I could tell you to go to some amazing, gorgeous libraries, but the ones that need your help the most are the ones in your own backyard. It’s not just your tax dollars that go to support them—it’s also the number of items you check out, be it books, movies, board games, what have you. Circulation numbers directly impact funding, so the more you use your library, the better it is for your library and, of course, you. 📚
Thank you so much, Sarah! Books are my love language, and sharing them with my toddler is one of my favorite parts of parenting. Pairing books with trips is something I’ve done forever—for a trip to Tuscany, for example, I read Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes; in Interlaken, I re-read The Hobbit because Tolkien created Rivendell in its image. It’s so fun to do the same thing with my little one.
On to this week’s recommendations!
This week’s rapid-fire recs.
Disclosure: This section may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. I promise I’ll only ever recommend products I’ve actually used and loved.
Sarah’s newsletter on “looking books” has been a huge game-changer in our house now that we do quiet time instead of naps.
Got myself out of a lunchbox rut with this adorable cookbook. My toddler chooses their lunch visually the night before in what has become a very fun pre-bedtime ritual. (No, I don’t cut anything into silly shapes. Despite my best efforts I’ll never be a Pinterest mama.)
Planting veggies in our garden this year alongside this sweet book.
Went down a rabbit hole about Carmichael’s bookstore—LitHub does interviews with indie bookstores that make my heart happy. Here’s Carmichael’s.
Thanks for being here.
For all the “just waits” that get thrown onto parents, nobody ever told me the pure JOY of hearing my toddler recite a book by heart. “Each peach, pear, plum…” Or that they would stand on a cushion, Roman orator style, and tell me the story of Moana with grand dramatics. The other day they *asked* to go to the library and reader, I just about died I was so happy. “Today I want to learn about…KOALAAAAAS!” (Yes, my toddler has charmed our children’s librarian, who often sets aside books for them, which is why librarians are the very best.)
Everyone told me to hang on to baby naps as long as possible. I miss being nap trapped, but almost every day I get the toddler plop right into my arms with a book. Or two, or three. Just wait until Redwall and Narnia and Lord of the Rings 🤓
To the world of imagination,
Kayla
Thank you for supporting Travel with Toddlers! If you liked this issue, please like it, share it, all the things. It really does mean a lot. I’m just a mom in the thick of the toddler years trying to create core memories for our whole family while minimizing meltdowns—I sincerely hope this helps you do the same.
This interview has been lightly edited for brevity/clarity.