A Free Plug for Whoever Writes These Books
Quick shout-out to the Mission books I downloaded before we left back in July. Mostly just to be nice and support a cool product but also because I need them to get books published for more cities, preferably before Story ages out of them.
They are wonderful for adults who want to see boring-ass adult things like museums, ruins, and monuments (how dare we) but also don't want their kids to whine or hate them.
Each book gives kids missions to find small details in big places. Maybe a particular gargoyle on a famous cathedral or, even better, a gruesome statue dedicated to a beheaded ruler.
You get points for each list item you find or new food you try. The idea is the kids will actually be excited to visit historical sites, and they might even accidentally learn something along the way.
They work pretty well. We did this in Paris, London, Rome, and Barcelona. London was our first attempt, so we were still trying to figure out the “system” there. We did count up our points at the end, but I’m afraid to say I don’t remember how many we got. Sorry to disappoint you all. What I do remember is counting the cars on The Eye and comparing our watches to the time on Big Ben. And better than that, I remember Story asking if we could keep walking through Hyde Park a bit longer, so we could get points for seeing the memorial fountain for Diana. That walk ended up being a really nice time, just the two of us, quietly taking in everything around us.
By the time we hit Barcelona, we were masters at it. I highly recommend touring La Rambla with this book. Don’t have kids? So what? Just go for it. We saw and learned so many more details and bits of history and art than we ever would have noticed on our own. Before we’d even opened the book, Story saw a Joan Miró mosaic and said, “I bet we’re gonna get points for that.” (She was right.) She did start to tease me about being more into it than she was, which was probably true. But it was just fun enough that the whole family took part at least a few times. Like, we would make Sagan and Mike try foods we didn’t want to try, so we could still earn points as a family.
More than anything, it was a simple carrot on a stick to distract my kid from how long a line was or how hot the walk. When my spidey senses tingled for signs of boredom, I said, “Let’s check the book and see what we need to hunt down.” Sometimes that’s all it takes to change an outing from work to play.
Thank you, Mission Books! And please do some for Ecuador and Australia real quick. K thx bye!
