LEGENDARY ROUTES OF THE WORLD

A pop-up commemoration of five historic journeys for would-be travelers to attempt—both on the Earth and beyond it.

All are challenging but (at least theoretically) retraceable. Arranged in no particular order, spreads open on map after map. There’s the Toulouse-to-Santiago mail route that Antoine de St. Exupéry and other intrepid early French aviators flew for Aéropostale; the trans-Atlantic “Route du Rhum” for solo sailors; the Silk Road; America’s Route 66; and the Apollo moon voyages. Dramatic pop-ups range from a motorcycle with sidecar roaring out of a Southwestern sunset to a multilevel tableau of horseback merchants and explorers venturing east to west and meeting in the middle with a similar, camelback cavalcade going the other way. Each opening features mileage, a date or era, and brief background notes on the route’s significance and selected highlights. A stylishly mustached figure and an eager dog appear also somewhere in each scene—including the lunar landing—as stand-ins for viewers…or possibly the book’s creators.

Unlikely to prod children out of their armchairs to undertake their own voyages of discovery, but the lighthearted suggestion that it’s the journey, not the destination, that matters most won’t go amiss.