Now That You've Read The Book, See The Place

  • Summer family vacations need not be mindless trips down water slides or endless waits in theme-park lines. The American landscape is literally littered--that is, rich in literary resources that can bring to life the books your family has been reading.

    Try a change of pace this year: Don't just book a journey. Journey a book. Visit the homes of your children's favorite writers and characters--or choose a place you want to visit and prepare for the trip by reading the authors who set their stories there. "When you go to the places that stories are about or that are associated with authors, it adds to your store of memories or images about them," says Leonard S. Marcus, children's-book critic for Parenting magazine.

    In the following pages, TIME offers five regional vacation itineraries inspired by a variety of books that are popular with readers ranging from tots to teenagers. Our choices reflect not only the need to meet different levels of reader sophistication but also a recognition that vacations should be fun.

    If these don't grab you, create your own adventure. The important thing is to capture the excitement of connecting literary landscapes with real-life places--and to nourish your family's love of reading. And if your kids insist on stopping at an amusement park on the way, one more water slide probably won't kill you.