Picture books can enrich kids’ outdoor experiences

Our Valley is full of woodland and mountain trails families can explore in a few hours. Mount Tom State Reservation and Mount Sugarloaf have parking, hiking and biking trails, and great views of the Valley. When you stop your hike for a snack break, pull out “Hike” (Oswald), “Spring Hike” (Dowd/Moyo), and “Hiking Day” (Rockwell/Rockwell).

Appreciate the trees and diverse flora at the National Natural Landmark Bartholomew’s Cobble (and other Trustees of Reservations locations across Massachusetts) with titles including “Wake Up Woods” (Homoya/Gibson/Harris), “The Things that I Love about Trees” (Butterworth/Voake) and “Look What I Found in the Woods” (Butterfield/Verona). At historic locations such as Poet’s Seat in Greenfield, books like “Daniel Finds a Poem” (Archer) can inspire a creative project.

Who can write the funniest haiku or limerick? Can you write an ode to a found object from your hike?

Pack a few books with your water and snacks when visiting the many conservation areas of western Mass. Take a walk at Fitzgerald Lake in Florence, Mittineague Park in West Springfield, and Arcadia Wildlife Sanctuary in Easthampton, where you can get creative in their arts and crafts cabin while reading aloud from middle-grade titles about navigating nature and friendships like “Partly Cloudy” (Davis), “Paradise on Fire” (Rhodes) and Newbery Medal winner “Hello Universe” (Kelly).

Two books for young readers are posed with street art along the bike path in Florence. Allie Martineau

If you’re making camping plans along the Mohawk Trail or in your backyard, pack a reading light. Early readers will love “Scaredy Squirrel Goes Camping” (Watt) and “Bug Scouts: Camp Out!” (Lowery). Middle-grade readers can laugh all night reading graphic novels “Camp” (Miller) and “Be Prepared” (Brosgol), or add a touch of magic with “Chiggers” (Larson).

Young adult readers will never forget “Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults” (Kimmerer/Smith/Neidhart), or one reluctant queer kid’s summer retreat in “As the Crow Flies” by graphic novelist Melanie Gillman, who can draw big skies that never end with just a few colored pencils.

Shared spaces like city parks help us get moving and meet our neighbors, as we learn in “A Park Connects Us” (Nelson/Rooney). Pulaski Park in Holyoke has a skate park that may inspire you to put on roller blades or put air back in your bike tires. In that case, bring along books like “Emmanuel’s Dream” (Thompson/Qualls), “Skater Cielo” (Katstaller), and “Kick Push” (Morrison).

The ways our bodies play and move are unique and worth celebrating, so pick a picture book rooted in disability justice and body positivity like “We Move Together” (Fritsch/McGuire/Trejos), “Bodies are Cool” (Feder), and “We Are Little Feminists: On the Go.”

Even if our city is more gray than green, nature is all around us. Check out “The Street Beneath My Feet” (Guillain/Zommer), “Sidewalk Flowers” (Lawson/Smith), and Expedition Backyard: Exploring Nature from Country to City (Mosco/Hu). After reading “Miss Rumphius” (Cooney), you may find yourself tossing flower seeds into unused dirt plots on your way to work and school to “do something to make the world more beautiful.”

At any age, picture books inspire us to connect with the outside world and engage with nature. Each of these books can inspire activities: making your own footprints in mud and guessing how long they’ll stay, tossing seeds into an unused patch of city dirt, or creating fairy houses along the trail. With subjects like building your own community garden plot, drawing the world around you, and getting to know your neighbors, picture books teach us valuable life skills and connect us to each other.