I picked up A Camera, Two Kids and a Camel completely randomly during a long afternoon spent browsing the shelves at the local library. My intention was to take it home and flip through the pages at the breakfast table, but I was greatly mistaken at how involved I would get with this book.

A Camera, Two Kids and a Camel is written by Annie Griffiths Belt, who was the youngest photographer at the National Geographic Society when she arrived to work there in 1978. A photographer by trade, Annie has compiled A Camera, Two Kids and a Camel as an autobiography / coffee table book, and it works. Early in the book, she writes about her journey of becoming a photographer (it all started with a college newspaper assignment) for one of the most-renowned associations known for its vivid and authentic photography, the National Geographic Society.

She talks about meeting her husband (Don, a writer for the magazine), and then having two children. For many people, this would result in the end of their world travels, but having children simply fueled Annie and Don’s desire to share the world with their family, so for many years, the four of them have traipsed from the Galapagos Islands to Jersalem to Wyoming and beyond. (The kids, now in their early 20s, still travel frequently with their parents.) Annie writes a lot about what it’s like to travel with kids, thus providing valuable information to people who would like to do the same.

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