National Geographic Kids Ultimate U.S. Road Trip Atlas: Maps, Games, Activities, and More for Hours of Backseat Fun Paperback – March 13, 2012

One reviewer made it sound like there's not much to this atlas. I'm a high school teacher, and I notice that many items generically labeled 'for kids' don't have a specific audience or age range in mind. This book is recommended for kids 8 and up. We have a 5 year old and an 11 year old. The 11 year old thinks it's a great trivia book with tons of maps. Our 5 year old thinks it's cool that he has his own maps, like the ones on our navigation system.The book is colorful, magazine-sized, and very appealing, visually. Most states get a 2-page spread, with a map of the state on one page, 5 Cool Things to do Here surround the map, with colored pointers to their locations, and off to the side a few smaller sections like popular roadside attractions (usually 3), and either a Fantastic State Facts or Traffic Laws You Won't Believe section. There is a brief description of the geography of each state, and images of the state bird, flower, and animal are near the state's name.Each state also has its own Boredom Buster that will occupy kids for quite a while, though they can be technology-focused. Examples include taking pictures of Clinton references as you travel through Arkansas, searching for famous people from Iowa and see who can find the most, taking pictures of tornado shelters in Kansas and see who can find the most, etc. It also includes 10 pages of games at the back which are colorful, but probably won't last more than a half hour.Some critics have made it sound like there's not much to the book. I can see that argument in one sense. There's not enough information to occupy bored kids for several hours, as you drive through a state. I do agree with the comment that the US map is too small. With the format of the book, the map could have been nearly 11 x 17, yet it's shrunk down to about 2/3 of the available space with a large, wasted green border around it. It's a good map, showing the Interstate highways with approximate drive times between each major city. It's a great way for kids to practice their time and math skills. It's just disappointing that it could have been substantially larger without changing its focus or function in any way. As a kid's atlas with lots of added trivia, it's WAY more interesting for my two boys than a regular atlas. Could they have included more information? Yes, but they could have made the pages too overwhelming for younger readers, too. I think the colorful design and layout make the atlas accessible for a wide range of ages. Though most suited for 8-12 year olds, I know many of my high school students would prefer this to a standard atlas for the trivia and layout, alone.

This is the best book for kids in the 7+ range for road trips or just for those who are interested in geography/maps/United States, etc. When we were on a road trip, we first gave it to my 9 year old son who didn't seem terribly interested. I think it was because he didn't understand what it was. My 7 year old daughter opened it up and lit up when she realized she could follow along on the map where we were driving on the car. She called out every city before we reached it for hours on end. It started a ton of questions about the state we were traveling through and our own state. She loved reading the interesting facts about the states and before long, my two kids were fighting over who got to look through the book! Any time we travel somewhere or talk about places we've gone, they pull out this book and rediscover the whole thing all over again. Tonight my daughter pulled it out and talked to her great grandmother who lived in many places all over the United States. She had her pointing out all the places she lived, asked her which national parks she had visited and had her trace out her journey across Route 66 when she traveled from the East Coast to the West Coast. This book is such a huge win for our family!

The kids and I took a 6 1/2 week camping trip to Western Canada and Alaska last summer and many of those days were spent almost entirely in the car. This book was SO helpful! The kids could follow along for parts of the trip (those in the US) and there are games and pictures, too. Each of the states is covered along with interesting facts about each and there are activities they can do over and over. There is also an Index so when, for example, we got to Denali National Park, they could look up everywhere Denali is mentioned and find those pages. It's not a huge amount of detail, but it's well worth the inexpensive price and we can use it this coming summer when we go to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons!

Just completed a road trip from Washington State to Rhode Island with two children, almost 3 and almost 7. Needless to say we are glad that it is over, but really enjoyed using this book along the way. My son, the 6yo loved looking at the pictures and reading all of the interesting facts as we entered each state. It was a great learning experience because we would be so excited when we reached a new state. I would have him read from the book and we would try to memorize all of the capitals from every state, which I am not even sure they make kids do that these days, but I can recall all of them from when I was little!The last pages has some games and puzzles which he enjoyed, and there was a license plate scramble at the end, which I thought was a little difficult for him to decipher. I would have much rater had them blank so he could color them in once we saw that plate on the road. We ended up having him write them down on a piece of paper instead of crossing them out in the book. I think it would have been easier to color, but oh well. I also wish that there were some blank pages in the front or back to write down your own observations, as we were trying to make it a learning experience for him as well.I will have to note that this is not a comprehensive map or detailed version of what is in every state. Some of the highways and freeways that we traveled on were missing, which was confusing for him because he wanted to know how we went through this state without a road , so we brought out the rand McNally road atlas that we purchased here on Amazon, and that made it a little more understandable.

Lots of activities for the read trip. Interesting facts for kids. Great book. Would definitely recommend it for the road trip

good book

Brill - we used this as a guide to seeing key places/points of interest on our roadtrip

子供向けのロードマップ。フルカラーで内容も面白い。旅行にもお勧めです

Awesome for letting the kids look up where we were on our road trip across the states!