Paddle-to-the-Sea

Holling C. Holling's 1941 picture book about a boy near Lake Superior who carves a small canoe with a paddler inside and sets it on a snowbank to ride the spring melt to the sea. It travels through the Great Lakes, over Niagara Falls, and down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic. Each page of text faces a full-color painting, and pencil drawings in the margins map the route and explain sawmills, canal locks, and lake freighters. A 1942 Caldecott Honor book, hardcover, 64 pages.

A classic living book that teaches Great Lakes geography better than a textbook could. Kids get attached to the little canoe and really want to know where it ends up.