Alaska Books

This is a masterpiece. I couldn't put it down. I am sure you will love it too.

This is a great book about history and growing up in Alaska with missionary parents.

Al Wright became a pilot and flew all over Alaska and started his own airline in Alaska.

Great pictures also.

Having been to Alaska twice I am aware of the sheer magnitude of wonders the state has to offer.It is truly too large to see completely.This is the first book I have ever found that manages to capture so much of the jaw dropping beauty that can be found there.It has photographs that put in perspective the vastness of this frontier.Also captured are most of the creatures that make this such a special place.For anyone wishing to visit,this book will transport you there immediately. For anyone who has already been,opening this book will take you back there!Wonderful photographs and inspiring writing.

Now in a newly revised, updated, and expanded third edition, Alaska: The Cruise-Lover's Guide by Paul and Audrey Grescoe continues to be a simply terrific and "user friendly" supplementary resource to enjoying the best that an Alaskan cruise has to offer, from sightseeing wildlife to observing or participating in exciting sports and events. Gorgeous color photographs enhance this exceptionally practical and nicely organized travel guide written for both the casual as well as the enthusiastically active tourist or vacationer.

Alaska is a beautiful place which I had the pleasure to visit for an extended amount of time. I discovered that Alaska has a lot going for it, and this book will show you and your students what.

The "Portrait of America" series is a sensational and easy to understand introduction for pre-teens to the 50 states and to the places and events that shaped the history of the United States. This "Alaska" installment is very good. The book is broken down into sections like "History", "Culture", "Economy" etc., and each section is thoughtfully written and edited. The "Culture" section is quite good, but I wish it had dealt more with the older civilizations that had existed before the 18th century.

This book, as well as the entire "Portrait of America" series, will prove to be a valuable teaching tool to all primary school educators.

What a wonderful book!! Anyone who likes Alaska at all should own a copy. Even if you are not interested in Alaska I recommend this book just for the sheer beauty of the photographs. Fred Hirschmann, your photographic brilliance is on full display. Suzan Nightingale, your thoughts and essays couldn't be better. This is Alaska!!

Whether you live in Alaska or travel across it by cruise ship or air or some other means--this beautiful book is for you. On each glossy page there lies something for every tourist and local. Rich photos of the common cruise ship sights, from the deep blue glaciers of the inside passage to little Skagway sitting on the hillside, all the the cruise ship ports are captured by Fred Hirschmann's lens. Aerial views of Anchorage, Juno, Mt. Denali--it's all here followed by interesting explantions of life in Alsaka. I originally saw this book in a little shop at the Port of Juno and immediately wanted it, but it was only for display--how happy I was to search and find it here on Amazon! I highly recommend this book--large, clear photos and excellent journalism will keep your memories of Alaska in perfect order and will bring your friends into the bountiful beauty of the land with which you fell in love.

This is the best guidebook I've seen about Alaska. Its an illustrated introduction that lures you into the wilds of Alaska with amazing, artistic photography. It provides background, history, insight, and discusses things to do that don't fit into the cookie-cutter format of other guidebook series.

The photography is beautiful and artistic, printed in a format just large enough to give you some idea of the grandeur of Alaska without making the book too unwieldy to take along on your trip. Also included are historical drawings, sketches, and high-quality maps. Its humorous in parts (what is a "sourdough"?).

This book goes beyond the normal guidebook which might list town, lodging and restaurants. It starts off with a fascinating history of the entire state, a discussion of the people of Alaska, the wildlife; then discusses four major areas of Alaska (and their history, people, etc.). It helps you get to know the state.

The descriptions of food, lodging and tours are adequate, but you may want to supplement these listing with a AAA guidebook or travel agent.

I believe I have flown over Alaska flying back from Japan to California, however I am not sure about it. However, I have not been to Alaska, which makes it the only one of the 50 states left for me to visit. On my honeymoon several years back I made a point of traveling through Maine and dipping into Rhode Island in driving from Boston to Hartford just to make it state number 49. My expectation is to do a cruise, because everybody I know who has taken a cruise to Alaska has raved about it, so I think that will be the way to go. In her introduction to this America the Beautiful Second Series volume, Donna Walsh Shepherd makes it clear that are plenty of reasons to visit even if it is not on your places-to-visit list. Chapter One, "Alaska--A Great Land," sets up the dichotomy that exist in the largest state (and second least populated), a land that has both temperate rain forests and frozen deserts.

The next three chapters of this volume look at the history of the place that was the first part of North America to be populated. Chapter Two, "Coming to the New Continent," starts 7,000 years ago when people first left their homes in Asia and walked east to Alaska, and ends with Seward's Folly as the United States bought Alaska for $7.2 million dollars (2 cents an acre) in 1867. Chapter Three, "From Gold to War," covers from the discovery of gold in 1848 to what happened in World War II in the north. Chapter Four, "North to the Future," starts with Alaska's statehood in 1959 as the 49th state and ends with the importance of the black gold of oil to Alaska.

The "Spectacular Nature" of Alaska's geography is covered in Chapter Five, focusing more on the parklands and animals than the six distinct regions. Chapter Six, "Cities, Towns, and Villages," contrasts life in the large cities of Alaska with that in the bush communities (Nome got its name because a British navy cartographer creating maps from ships' charts misread the handwriting that said "?name" to mean "Nome"). Chapter Seven, "Government by the People," talks about what politics are like in a state where a few votes can decide an election. This is also where young students get to learn about the state symbols (the bowhead whale is the state marine mammal, but the state land mammal is the moose). If you cannot guess what the state sport is you are just not paying attention.

The economy of Alaska is covered in Chapter Eight, "Making a Living," which looks at the abundant natural resources and tourism (there is a list of the top-ten-most-visited places to help you plan ahead). You have to wait for this book's recipe until Chapter Nine, "Who Are Those Alaskans?" That would be citrus broiled Alaska salmon, which I am going to have to try (I poached salmon last month, I can handle this). Chapter Ten, "Alaskan Art and Alaskan Fun," starts with the idea that Mother Nature is the best artist in Alaska, but also covers native and winter art. Of course, the Iditarod shows up here as well. The back of the book has the expected Timeline, where U.S. and Alaska state history run in parallel columns, and the pages of Fast Facts with all sorts of statistics that young students can use researching the state. There are also lists of books, organizations, and Internet sites where students can go To Find Out More.

The American the Beautiful Second Series books are filled with color photographs of Alaska, original maps on things like topography and population density (by borough), and dozens of informative sidebars. These are always the treat in these books, and because there are not a lot of people up there in Alaska, Shepherd goes into some of them in some depth. There is a two-page spread on Alaska's current political leaders, whereas the life of a Salmon only gets a single page. But young readers will also find out about Gold Rush characters such as Klondike Kate, the Chilkoot Trail, Blue Babe the frozen steppe bison, and Jewel Kilcher. Teachers should take advantage of this series to have their students research the various states with an actual book (do they still do that?).

They came up with a great photograph to indicate how big Alaska is on the cover of this From Sea to Shining Sea volume. Beyond the antlers in the front of the photograph there is a wide expanse of tundra, a forest, a river, more tundra, and off in the distance mountains (and that is cold desert tundra and not frozen tundra like at Lambeau Field). As Barbara A. Somervill explains in her opening chapter, Alaska is called the "last frontier," not to be confused with space, which is the "final frontier." If you put Alaska over the lower forty-eight states, it would reach from San Francisco to Cleveland (but I think that is talking just about the mainland and leaving the Aleutians and the southeast part of the state out of the equation). But while it is the biggest state, Alaska has the third smallest population (Vermont and Wyoming have less people). She also covers the fascinating story of Benny Benson, the 13-year-old who designed the state flag, before moving on to the people, places and events of the Last Frontier.

The geography of Alaska is the topic for the book's second chapter, which divides the state into six regions: the North Slope, Western Alaska, the Aleutian region, the Interior, South central Alaska, and Southeast Alaska. What is interesting this time around is that Somervill sets up how the unique geographical characteristics result in different Alaska Native cultures in each region. Alaska has 44,856 square miles of lakes and rivers, but the section of the chapter covering those is called water and ice, reflecting the fact that state is 350 miles south of the North Pole. There are also sections on climate as well as one on plants and animals. The third chapter is about the history of Alaska, the first part of North America to be settled. This time it is the Russians who are the first Europeans to arrive in Alaska, followed by the English and Spanish. In 1867, U.S. Secretary of State William Seward buys Alaska for $7.2 million (about two cents an acre), and "Seward's Folly" seems like a great idea when gold is discovered in the Yukon in 1896. Alaska did not become a territory until 1912, and it was not until World War II that the Alaska-Canada Highway was built connecting it to Washington state. Statehood comes in 1950 (the vote was 64-20 in the Senate, which I find interesting), and the chapter's final section on The Mighty Land of Alaska covers everything from the 1964 earthquake to the "Exxon Valdez" and today's environmental concerns.

The next chapter looks at the three branches of state government, and then Somervill takes her young readers on a tour of Juneau, the State Capital. A map of the downtown area show the location of the made government buildings and a few museums (notice in the photograph on the facing page that you can see the Federal Building and figure out some of the others from the map as well). The people and places of Alaska are detailed in the fifth chapter, which begins with the Alaska Natives, but also talks about education and what people find for work up there. This book has one of the few recipes for a main course with Mexican-Style Alaskan Pollock (no, really, that is what the recipe is for). You were probably hoping for something involving Alaskan king crab. Finally, we get to go on a tour of Alaska, beginning with the panhandle and ending up in the northern part of the state, with Somervill covering what there is to see and do in each region.

The back of the book begins with a two-page Alaska Almanac that includes some useful statistics and a long list of wildlife to go with the various state symbols and products. Then there is a Timeline that contrasts Alaska state history on top with U.S. history on the bottom, followed by a Gallery of Famous Alaskans that highlights Susan Butcher and Jewel Kilcher by giving them photographs. A Glossary defines some key terms such as "aurora borealis" and "tundra," while Somervill provides a list of web sites, books, and addresses that her readers can turn to For More Information.

That might be necessary, because a hallmark of this series are those dozens of sidebars scattered throughout. Who's Who in Alaska? tells about famous people from Vitus Bering to Sheldon Jackson, while Exrra! Extra! blocks tell about some of the things Alaska has the most or the largest of, and Find Out More asks young students to figure out thing like what oil from Prudhoe Bay is so hot. You also learn What's in a Name? (e.g., the state's name comes from the Aleut word "al-ay-es-ka," meaning "great land"). So there is plenty of information in these 80-pages to work into a school report on Alaska in general or specific topics. Of course, from Alaska the only direction to go is south and from the 49th state there is only one place left to visit out there in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. So expect a big change in climate. Aloha!

My child has always loved Alaska. His first book fettish was "Oil Spill," about the Exxon-Valdez disaster. It was natural that he chose Alaska for research in grammar school This book was simple, too the point, and had full color pictures that added to his understanding. All the highlights were included that he needed - history, geography, people, flags, cultures,. . . Highly recommend for grade school students.