Our Page Through The Parks adventure continues this week in Yellowstone National Park, the setting for my YA debut novel FAITHFUL.

I first visited Yellowstone in my late twenties, and nothing could have prepared me for the wonder. The landscape would be amazing enough by itself, but add the wildlife, hot springs, geysers, and history, and it is one of the most marvelous places on this planet.

Old Faithful Inn, 1904

It was not a stretch to decide to set my novel in the Park, and I also decided to set it in 1904, the year the Old Faithful Inn was opened. It would have been a marvel of its time. You can read lots of historical and other accounts in my archived posts on Yellowstone history. But the place was a tourist destination from the late 1800s for good reason, and acquired the nickname Wonderland. Lucky for me, the new historical archives opened in Gardiner Montana just as I was researching, so I had access to many early documents, maps, and accounts.

You can also learn more about Yellowstone, FAITHFUL, and history, and share exercises with students or readers with this reader guide created by Deb Gonzales.

On the Grand Tour through Wonderland

I’ve also loaded a Pinterest page with pictures I gathered during my research, so you can live vicariously. In FAITHFUL, Maggie’s journey through Yellowstone mirrors the experiences that travelers would have witnessed, from the beauty of the landscape to the threatening animals, to even a highway robbery, which did happen to some tourist coaches in the early 1900s.

Old Faithful

If you ever have the chance to visit Yellowstone, grab it. You can stay in the Park at one of the many gorgeous and newly renovated hotels, or outside the Park, or camp, if you’re adventurous. And Teton National Park is not far south and equally beautiful, as is Glacier National Park to the north.

Mammoth hot springs

Don’t forget that we have a number of giveaways going this month. You can enter a giveaway for FAITHFUL here. And Liz Garton Scanlon’s picture book IN THE CANYON, set in the Grand Canyon, can be found here, and Barb Rosenstock’s THE CAMPING TRIP THAT CHANGED AMERICA, set in Yosemite, here.

We’ve also put together a list of Kids Books on or about the National Parks. And Liz Garton Scanlon has written some wonderful posts on the making of IN THE CANYON.

Best of all, for teachers and librarians we’ve put together an amazing giveaway that will start your classroom off for adventure. You can find the details of the giveaway here and see an image of the gorgeous artwork donated by Ashley Wolff on our Facebook page, but enter using the Rafflecopter below.

Thanks for joining us as we Page Through The Parks, and #readUSA!
a Rafflecopter giveaway