This is a lovely, well put-together gem of a book. It is not just another collection of ghost stories or tales of killer bears, meant to terrorize youngsters around the campfire, but a mature, reflective look at six of our national parks: Acadia, Great Smoky Mountains, Rocky Mountain, Yellowstone, Yosemite and Zion.

Within its 224 pages, published by The Mountaineers, you will read selections from modern and historic writers. Author Terry Tempest Williams, whose wondrous impressions of Acadia are excerpted from her book, The Hour of Land, says this book, “presents the spirit of these lands.” And she is absolutely correct.

Isabella Bird, the first woman to summit Longs Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park (while wearing a Hawaiian dress), describes her ascent, and descent, through letters to her sister. “As we crept from the ledge round a horn of rock I beheld what made me perfectly sick and dizzy to look at -- the terminal Peak itself -- a smooth, cracked face or wall of pink granite, as nearly perpendicular as anything could well be up which it was possible to climb, well deserving the name of the American Matterhorn.”

Wiley Oakley, an Appalachian guide, takes you back to a time when the Great Smoky Mountains were home. There are also poems by Wabanaki about Acadia, musings from John Muir on California wildlife, and a selection from A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson. There is a selection for any time or place, long or short, whimsical or deep with meaning.

Every story concludes with a description of the author, and context of the readings, and how they were selected. The editors also have a perfect primer on reading aloud, how to select the correct reading, when to read them aloud to the group and even the type of rhythm and cadence that works best to capture the campfire listener.

With a foreword by Carolyn Finney, author of Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors, this book is slim enough to fit in the top flap of your pack, ready to pull out for an audience in the woods, or for an audience of one at the top of a peak.