THE PASSPORT PROJECT

A travel book by a mother and her two daughters focuses on the family’s five-month trip around the world and the lessons learned along the way.

The McIntyres’ autobiographical work is written from the perspectives of teenagers Delaney and Riley. The girls recount that they weren’t sure how they felt about their parents’ plans to take them out of middle school and go “on a global family field trip.” The girls really weren’t surprised, as they knew how much their parents loved to travel, but they worried about what they would miss at home. The family had ventured to foreign countries before, and readers get a glimpse of a previous trip to Panama. After their parents included London on the itinerary, the girls acquiesced. The family traveled to a diverse array of countries and had some scary, thrilling, and eye-opening experiences. First, they went to Europe. In Iceland, they visited geothermal springs and a geyser; in England, they trekked to Stonehenge, the Tower of London, and the Harry Potter sets at the Warner Bros. Studio; in Italy, they explored the Colosseum and Vatican City. Then they moved on to Asia, where they immediately noticed a difference between their clothes and those of the locals. They were also surprised by the Christmas decorations in Malaysia and the traffic rules in Vietnam. In Australia and New Zealand, they got to hold a koala bear, bungee jump, and scuba dive on the Great Barrier Reef before finishing their trip via Indonesia and China. In this engrossing book, the teens insightfully express key lessons, such as “every country gets to tell their version of history,” which they learned at a prisoner-of-war camp in Vietnam. The richly detailed, educational work is a wonderful resource for families considering a similar experience. The volume could be given to tweens or teens to help them ready themselves for the adventure and to build anticipation and commitment to the endeavor. Maps, family photographs, and a “report card” section listing the travelers’ most and least favorite experiences in each country are excellent inclusions.

An engaging and enlightening travel account about a family’s global journey.