Storybook Travels: From Eloise's New York to Harry Potter's London, Visits to 30 of the Best-Loved Landmarks in Children's Literature

by Colleen Dunn Bates, Susan LaTempa

In their imaginations, children travel the world when they read such books as Madeline, A Bear Called Paddington, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and Little House on the Prairie. Make these imaginary journeys a reality for your children with visits to the actual settings of these and dozens more of the best-loved tales in children’s literature. Storybook Travels is the ultimate guide for book-loving parents in search of vacations the whole family will enjoy. Let Storybook Travels be your family’s companion on unforgettable excursions, including:

A magical walk through London looking for the mysterious spots young Harry frequents in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

A fun-filled visit to the Plaza Hotel in New York City, reliving the charmed existence of Eloise

A busy day in the tiny Tuscan village of Collodi, watching a puppet show, exploring a hedge maze, and enjoying other activities in homage to The Adventures of Pinocchio

A scenic trek following the same trail created by Brighty the Burro, a real-life hero whose story is told in Brighty of the Grand Canyon

A wonderful sojourn in Paris and surrounding areas, visiting museums, eating at typical French cafés, and spotting the famous water lilies at Monet’s home in Giverny, all celebrated in Linnea in Monet’s Garden

An afternoon of barbecue and music at the Chicago Blues Festival, in the imaginary company of Yolonda and her harmonica-playing little brother, the stars of Yolonda’s Genius

With itineraries for more than thirty locales in North America and Europe, Storybook Travels explores destinations near and far, rural and urban. Whether you want to plan a trip that will mean as much to you as it will to your children (or grandchildren), are looking for ways to enrich already-planned trips, or want to bring to life the fondly remembered books of your own childhood, Storybook Travels is your guide to one enchanting journey after another.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Books About Books, Childrens, Family, Reference

288 pages, Paperback

First published June 4, 2002

About the author

Colleen Dunn Bates is the author/co-author and/or editor of a number of guidebooks and travel books, including Storybook Travels and Hometown Pasadena. She left the writing life behind, however, to be the publisher and editor of Prospect Park Books in Los Angeles. Prospect Park publishes best-selling, award-winning fiction, mysteries, cookbooks, gift/humor books, and regional titles and is now owned by Turner Publishing in Nashville, Tennessee.

Reviews

[Rahmadiyanti]

This book remind me of my dreams; visit the setting of some children books that I really like. Heidi (I really really want to Switzerland!), Little House on the Prairie (unfortunately, when I visited US a months ago, I didn't have a chance to visit South Dakota, also Metropolitan Museum at NY-- setting of From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil Fransweiler *sigh*), etc.

If you want to visit some sites of children book setting, you need to read this book.

[Kristi Clemow]

I enjoyed the book - many of the stories I was unfamiliar with and some of the locations were dated since I read this in 2025 - but I would like to visit so many of these places. Heidi, Anne of Greene Gables and Harry Potter are my absolute favorites and could spend weeks anywhere related to their stories.

[Melanie]

I had high hopes for this book since it combined two of my favorites: children's literature and travel! I was disappointed at the lack of detail in this book. It felt more like a travelogue written by wealthy families. If your family likes to read and travel, you can figure this out on your own!

[Charlotte Farley]

Great ideas but would love an updated version.

[Daisy May Johnson]

There's something quite appealing in this guidebook to 'thirty of the best-loved landmarks in children's literature' and I think it centres on the texts selected. Quite often when it comes to guidebooks of this nature, the texts chosen are ones that the author themselves remembers from childhood, or canonical texts, or classic texts - texts that are somewhat removed, somehow, from a contemporaneous experience of childhood and childhood literature. Part of this is natural, and comes from the fact that our childhoods are so resolutely unique and will never be repeated nor understandable by anybody other than ourselves. Sure, you can share the key parts - going to school, first time you got the bus, first time you learnt how to swim - but you can't share the emotional responses and figurative constructions that occur within you.

And that's one of the big problems that come when writing about children's literature and literary tourism, do you write about it from your ideas of childhood or do you create some sort of constructed ideal reader that embodies what childhood should be now? It matters, it really does, because the reader that you write for, that you see reading this, will feel it even when they don't think they do. Words escape the meanings that you mean for them. They do that.

Dunn Bates and LaTempa address this through travelling with their children into a variety of different storybook locations and splitting each chapter into three key sections: 'the books', 'the experience', 'the itinerary'. Every now and then, there's a little inset that tells about a related title or aspect of the locations visited. 'The Books' provides a potted introduction to the texts in question which range from Island of the Blue Dolphins through to Brighty of the Grand Canyon, Linnea in Monet's Garden and the delicious Eloise . It's a lovely range of books. There is a strong US focus in the titles selected, inevitably due to the location of the authors, but there's also a lovely sprinkling of European titles as well. The great strength of this book is in its selection of texts because there's a conscious link to the experience of the children travelling with Dunn Bates and LaTempa. They are books that are currently being enjoyed by their children, and the tours are centred around the enjoyment of that experience. These are child-centric adventures around a text which the adults facilitate, allow and are also able to enjoy themselves. This isn't a book that centres around the absence of the child, rather it's a book that delights in their presence. It's not perfect (I would pay good money for this and other guide books of their ilk to acknowledge the temporal limitations of accurate practical information for example - several websites and locations I checked were not in existence any more), but it is rather intensely charming.

[Cayenne]

I really enjoyed this book. It was well researched and well written. I do not enjoy traveling, especially with my small children, but this book had a lot of great ideas on how to make it fun for them and you. I love the idea of visiting locations in books and I agree that it would make a trip a lot more fun for children to use that angle.

[Kathy]

This was a fun combination of a travel guide and armchair travel book. Each section gives a description of the storybook, their experiences traveling to the books location, and a recommended itinerary for anyone wanting to discover the books sites for themselves. Not only did it add to my list of places I want to visit, it also added to my to-read list (my 2 favorite lists).

[Katharine]

I felt like if you read the book, you could easily figure out your own storybook vacation. I don't see the point of this book telling you a page or two about Paddington's London, or Eloise's Plaza Hotel, or Madeline's Paris... maybe if you're already planning a vacation to that city and want some ideas? But if you read Paddington, Eloise, or Madeline, you already know where to go.

[Elizabeth]

Loved this book. I think every parent needs this book. I'm going to have to buy it for future reference. It's important to read to your children and has great tips to keep kids from getting board and also to get them to think about what they're seeing. The book makes you want to travel with kids and have family time. I want to see all the places in the book now!

[Sarah]

Not worth buying. I got this with Christmas money especially because of the Eloise section. Unfortunately the activities listed are go to F.A.O. Swartz and order room service. I could have written that on a post-it for free.

[Kristin King]

Well conceived. Nicely written.

[Meredith Henning]

Another recommendation from Lissa..