Parks for the People by Elizabeth Partridge and Becca Stadtlander - ADVISABLE

Parks for the People: How Frederick Law Olmsted Designed America by Elizabeth Partridge, illustrated by Becca Stadtlander. PICTURE BOOK. Viking (Penguin Random House), 2022. $18. 9781984835154

BUYING ADVISORY: EL, MS, HS – ADVISABLE

AUDIENCE APPEAL: LOW

This picture book does a good job of highlighting Frederick Law Olmsted's contributions to the public areas and national parks movement in the United States in the late 1800s. Olmsted was one of the first “landscape architects” to intentionally design public spaces, like New York City’s Central Park and the U.S. Capitol Grounds, for everyone, not just the rich and famous. 

 I appreciated that the book mentioned the Black and Indigenous peoples that were forced out of the spaces that Olmstead eventually helped design, like Central Park in New York and Yosemite National Park in California. This picture book could be a nice addition to a US History collection as it covers much of the history in the 1800s in America, but I don’t foresee it being a popular topic for the average reader. Overall, it was a beautiful little book about a topic and person that I didn't know much about before. 

BookswithBeddes