Tales from the Odyssey
No child should take an ancient tour of the world without a copy of the Odyssey and this one by Mary Pope Osborne was just perfect for Mozart and she loved it! There are five or six small chapter books in this series and they are very portable for reading on buses or trains. We combined this with reading some of the actual poem online.

Creative Home Schooling For Gifted Children
This is a good resource book for homeschoolers. I think they have changed the name now, which is good as I do not care for the "G" word, but is the same book. Somehow a reassuring book to have around, so it travels with us even though it is big.

The Story of the World
We love this book and this series! We mostly use it as one of our before bed stories. Mozart also loves the workbooks and we have brought two along with us, but we just use them in Spain because they are too big for our camper space. It is a great way to teach history to kids! By having a better understanding about history, our travels are enriched.This particular one was great for our ancient history tour.

Adventuring with Children
I love this classic book and think every family should own it! The subtitle says it all" An Inspirational Guide to World Travel & the Outdoors". This book is just chock full of gems and great information. She really covers everything from how to do hand laundry to keeping up violin practice while adventuring as a family. She has twin boys and a girl, so lots of practical experience over the years in many different modes from yachting and camping to hiking and biking on short and long trips.

Exotic Travel Destinations for Families
This is a great how-to book for exotic family travel. When I first looked at it I was inspired and some of the trips looked quite exotic to my eyes, but now that we have been to Morocco and Turkey as a family, most of it looks rather tame and we know we enjoy travel on the exotic side. If you have not done any exotic travel as a family, this book is an informative place to start your research.

Bringing Out the Best, A Guide for
Parents of Young Gifted Children
There are not that many books out there for
young gifted kids. This is a good basic guide
with useful information

What Your Doctor May NOT Tell You
About Children's Vaccinations
Written by an MD who is an expert on pediatric
vaccinations, this is an excellent book to help one
make this very important and difficult decision.
It is essential to get informed, even more so for
families that travel. Travel clinics have a vested
interest, so unlikely to give you the whole picture.
This book is a good starting point. Sometimes the
vaccine can be more harmful than the  disease and
there are many precautions a parent can take to
make this a safer choice.

Homeschooling for Excellence
This is an older classic about one of the pioneering homeschool families who sent 3 boys to Harvard who graduated at the top of their classes and how they raised and taught them on a homestead ranch. I like their attitude of following the lead of the child and like their subtitle "How to Take Charge of Your Child's Education and Why You Must".

And the Skylark sings with me Adventures in
Homeschooling and Community-based Education
I really like this book about a family that homeschools and how much they all learn through the adventure and community-based education. His children had great interest in Opera and music very young like Mozart, so that is what led me to this book. I even got to "know" them online as they were originally from our same town and he is very active in homeschooling circles. Lots of good information here and an attitude that I admire.

Storybook Travels
Great ideas for family travel by making itineraries
based on great children's Literature! Over 30
itineraries in North America and Europe for amazing
adventures for parents and children to share. We have
done many out of the book and have taken the idea
and made some of our own. Love it....wonderful
way to help a child identify with a place and learn
while having fun.

How Children Learn
Classic read by an extraordinary teacher
and one of the fathers of the homeschooling
movement.

How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of Your Doctor
A classic....oldie, but goody! This is a must read for
all parents & we have it  with us at all times as  a
handy reference manual. As a former nurse, I love
this smart MD Pediatrician who has a ton of
good practical advice.

Take Your Kids to Europe
This book is a good practical guide for taking a family
trip to Europe. They have a lot of good ideas about
kid friendly things to do and we especially liked the
information about the benefits of family travel by
motorhome/RV in Europe, rentals and longer stays.

Math Coach A Parent's Guide to
Helping Children Succeed in Math
This is a great book to help your kid with math whether you homeschool or have a child in school. When we are on the move, math, reading, music, games, journals & discussions are the keys for us. This is a good reference book & we carry it with us in our traveling library.

In English of Course
This is a lovely picture book and funny tale based on a true story about a girl from Naples, Italy who moves to New York City and her fist day in class with other immigrant children & a child's perspective on being bilingual and learning a new language this way. I bought this for Mozart before leaving as a kind of bibliotherapy to prepare her for her life in her new school in her second language. It was valuable on several levels and she still enjoys this book.

A Family Year Abroad
There are not that many books about family extended travel ( and there were even less when we prepared in 2005 and took off in 2006), so I used every resource that I could find for been there, done that information. This book was not my favorite as it applied primarily to a family spending a year in the Czech Republic  and attending American school and we were more interested in Spain and local schools to immerse in the culture. Still, I did gather some good information from it and I bought it. Every source has a little different take on things so many sources help in forming a plan.

WorldTrek: A Family Odyssey
This is the story of a family from Texas with two teens  that took a year off for a trip around the world. We think that is much too fast to see the world, but if that is all you have then it is better than most get. I would probably do less in this time as traveling fast can cost a lot more and take away from the experience, but there is benefit in reading many books on this topic. It is exciting as you prepare and helps one form ideas for your own trip.

Educational Travel on a Shoestring
We think that one of the primary reasons to travel with children is for educational reasons, so of course we liked this book's premise. It is not about extended travel
but combines too of our favorite topics frugal family travel and using travel as an educational opportunity before, during and after a family journey. Lots of practical tips here on how to get the most out of it for little cost.

Bring Your Own Children
This book was written by a renown psychologist who took a sabbatical with her family in South America. She gives lots of emphasis of the importance of traveling with children and lots of practical details about how to do that, especially extensive travel  in South America. Their 8 year old son writes in every chapter about his experience and what he liked and did not like.

The Family Sabbatical Handbook
This book like Escape 101, is about a family that spent an extended vacation in Mexico with a small child  and gained a lot of first hand information about how to do that. I think it is valuable to read many books on this topic to gain something unique from each as one plans their own escape. Lots of good information here that can help you with planning.

Escape 101
This was written by a cyber-friend that I know from Bootsnall travel forum. He does a good job of pointing out how a family can take a year off as he recently did with his family with a young child. He gives good and specific information on how families can take more long sabbaticals even if the company does not pay a cent. We prefer early retirement, but long sabbaticals are the next best things for families that can not do that.

What Your Fourth Grader Needs to Know
We love these books as a good homeschool guide and Mozart loves to read them just for fun. The entertaining fundamentals in this Core Knowledge series makes my job as a homeschool mom, much easier! They also have lesson plans and tests on their website.