Winner of a Lowell Thomas Award from the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation, the Gold Prize from the North American Travel Journalists Association, and a Silver in the National Parenting Publications Awards competition for parenting Resources. Travels with Baby, by celebrated family travel author and blogger Shelly Rivoli, helps parents plan every trip they'll take with their child from birth through 4 years. In addition to the major modes of transport covered in great detail--air travel (50 pgs.), travels by automobile (40 pgs.), cruise vacations (31 pgs.), rail travel (53 pgs. Including USA, Canada & Europe)--this "Ultimate Guide" also includes advice for traveling with children of different temperaments, health and safety considerations, suggestions for where to travel when during a child's first years, packing lists and travel-friendly baby gear recommendations, and more. As the Society for American Travel Writers Foundation declared, this guide is "...a must have even for families who only travel occasionally."

Mike Sullivan loves his adopted city of San Francisco, and he loves trees. In The Trees of San Francisco he has combined his passions, offering a striking and handy compendium of botanical information, historical tidbits, cultivation hints, and more. Sullivan's introduction details the history of trees in the city, a fairly recent phenomenon. The text then piques the reader's interest with discussions of 71 city trees. Each tree is illustrated with a photograph--with its common and scientific names prominently displayed--and its specific location within San Francisco, along with other sites; frequently a close-up shot of the tree is included. Sprinkled throughout are 13 sidelights relating to trees; among the topics are the city's wild parrots and the trees they love; an overview of the objectives of the Friends of the Urban Forest; and discussions about the link between Australia's trees and those in the city, such as the eucalyptus. The second part of the book gets the reader up and about, walking the city to see its trees. Full-page color maps accompany the seven detailed tours, outlining the routes; interesting factoids are interspersed throughout the directions. A two-page color map of San Francisco then highlights 25 selected neighborhoods ideal for viewing trees, leading into a checklist of the neighborhoods and their trees.

A naturist and historian for the National Parks Service offers a lively history of the giant sequoias of California and the love of nature they inspired. Former park ranger William C. Tweed takes readers on a tour of some of the world’s largest and oldest trees in a narrative that travels deep into the Sierra Nevada mountains, across the American West, and all the way to New Zealand. Along the way, he explores the American public's evolving relationship with sequoias, also known simply and affectionately as Big Trees. It’s no surprise that the sequoia groves of Yosemite and Calaveras were early tourist destinations. The species was the embodiment of California's superlative appeal. These giant redwoods were so beloved that special protections efforts sprang up to protect them from logging interests—and so began the notion of National Parks. Later, as science evolved to consider landscapes more holistically, sequoias once again played a major role in shaping this new perspective. Featuring a fascinating cast of adventurers, researchers, politicians, and environmentalists, King Sequoia reveals how one tree species transformed Americans' connection to the natural world.

"A volume for a lifetime" is how The New Yorker described the first of Donald Culross Peatie's two books about American trees published in the 1950s. In this one-volume edition, modern readers are introduced to one of the best nature writers of the last century. As we read Peattie's eloquent and entertaining accounts of American trees, we catch glimpses of our country's history and past daily life that no textbook could ever illuminate so vividly. Here you'll learn about everything from how a species was discovered to the part it played in our country’s history. Pioneers often stabled an animal in the hollow heart of an old sycamore, and the whole family might live there until they could build a log cabin. The tuliptree, the tallest native hardwood, is easier to work than most softwood trees; Daniel Boone carved a sixty-foot canoe from one tree to carry his family from Kentucky into Spanish territory. In the days before the Revolution, the British and the colonists waged an undeclared war over New England's white pines, which made the best tall masts for fighting ships. It's fascinating to learn about the commercial uses of various woods -- for paper, fine furniture, fence posts, matchsticks, house framing, airplane wings, and dozens of other preplastic uses. But we cannot read this book without the occasional lump in our throats. The American elm was still alive when Peattie wrote, but as we read his account today we can see what caused its demise. Audubon's portrait of a pair of loving passenger pigeons in an American beech is considered by many to be his greatest painting. It certainly touched the poet in Donald Culross Peattie as he depicted the extinction of the passenger pigeon when the beech forest was destroyed. A Natural History of North American Trees gives us a picture of life in America from its earliest days to the middle of the last century. The information is always interesting, though often heartbreaking. While Peattie looks for the better side of man's nature, he reports sorrowfully on the greed and waste that have doomed so much of America's virgin forest.

From roots to canopy, a lush, verdant history of the making of California. California now has more trees than at any time since the late Pleistocene. This green landscape, however, is not the work of nature. It’s the work of history. In the years after the Gold Rush, American settlers remade the California landscape, harnessing nature to their vision of the good life. Horticulturists, boosters, and civic reformers began to "improve" the bare, brown countryside, planting millions of trees to create groves, wooded suburbs, and landscaped cities. They imported the blue-green eucalypts whose tangy fragrance was thought to cure malaria. They built the lucrative "Orange Empire" on the sweet juice and thick skin of the Washington navel, an industrial fruit. They lined their streets with graceful palms to announce that they were not in the Midwest anymore. To the north the majestic coastal redwoods inspired awe and invited exploitation. A resource in the state, the durable heartwood of these timeless giants became infrastructure, transformed by the saw teeth of American enterprise. By 1900 timber firms owned the entire redwood forest; by 1950 they had clear-cut almost all of the old-growth trees. In time California’s new landscape proved to be no paradise: the eucalypts in the Berkeley hills exploded in fire; the orange groves near Riverside froze on cold nights; Los Angeles’s palms harbored rats and dropped heavy fronds on the streets below. Disease, infestation, and development all spelled decline for these nonnative evergreens. In the north, however, a new forest of second-growth redwood took root, nurtured by protective laws and sustainable harvesting. Today there are more California redwoods than there were a century ago. Rich in character and story, Trees in Paradise is a dazzling narrative that offers an insightful, new perspective on the history of the Golden State and the American West.

The White-Inyo Range--rising sharply from the eastern edge of Owens Valley--is one of the most extraordinary landscapes in the world. High, dry, and amazingly diverse, it boasts an expansive alpine tundra and features the oldest living species on earth--the 4,000-year-old Bristlecone Pines. This colorful and authoritative volume assembles a wealth of information of deep interest to the hikers and scientists attracted to White-Inyo's altitude and isolation. The nearly two dozen contributors to the volume are leading experts on the flora and fauna, the geology, geomorphology, meteorology, anthropology, and archaeology of the area. The book offers descriptions of more than 650 kinds of living organisms, from the handful of fish to the abundance of reptile, amphibian, bird and plant species. (It provides descriptions of hundreds of flowering plants.) It contains an 8-color geologic map and a roadside guide that enables the visitor to make sense of the area's complex geological history. Readers will also learn about air currents that make the range a delight for sailplane pilots and create strange cloud formations. And a special chapter tells what is known of the Native Americans who moved up and down the mountain slopes in response to seasonal changes. For anyone who wishes to visit this astonishing area or to do research there, this volume will be a unique, comprehensive resource. The White-Inyo Range--rising sharply from the eastern edge of Owens Valley--is one of the most extraordinary landscapes in the world. High, dry, and amazingly diverse, it boasts an expansive alpine tundra and features the oldest living species on earth--the 4,000-year-old Bristlecone Pines. This colorful and authoritative volume assembles a wealth of information of deep interest to the hikers and scientists attracted to White-Inyo's altitude and isolation. The nearly two dozen contributors to the volume are leading experts on the flora and fauna, the geology, geomorphology, meteorology, anthropology, and archaeology of the area. The book offers descriptions of more than 650 kinds of living organisms, from the handful of fish to the abundance of reptile, amphibian, bird and plant species. (It provides descriptions of hundreds of flowering plants.) It contains an 8-color geologic map and a roadside guide that enables the visitor to make sense of the area's complex geological history. Readers will also learn about air currents that make the range a delight for sailplane pilots and create strange cloud formations. And a special chapter tells what is known of the Native Americans who moved up and down the mountain slopes in response to seasonal changes. For anyone who wishes to visit this astonishing area or to do research there, this volume will be a unique, comprehensive resource.