Paris with Kids

This is an excellent travel guide that happens to focus on things that are especially appealing when you are traveling with kids. The descriptions of the sites around town are interesting and well done. Even though this edition is a few years old, the restaurant and hotel recommendations were still extremely helpful in the spring of 2006. It was especially nice to have recommendations for places that mainly drew Parisians in areas that had heavy tourist traffic. This enabled my son and I to really experience Paris rather than just be exposed to other tourists. I looked at some other traveling with kids books and even bought the Cadogan guide but this one was head and shoulders above the rest. If you are bringing your child or children to Paris, I would suggest combining this with a guide that includes good maps of the city such as the Moon Metro Paris.

Our family is similar to the authors: Franco-American, two kids (also boys) and a love of Paris. We thought we knew everything there was to know about Paris with kids, but this book taught us a wealth of new material, revealing an entire "new" city. If it could teach these old Paris hands a thing or two, just think what families new to Paris will learn. This book has a great mix of facts, fun, frivolity and fascination scattered throughout its pages, and is all you really need for a well-rounded trip to the City of Light. Buy it, pack it, and go!

Our family found this book an excellent guide to find fun and unusual adventures in Paris. While the words Travel, Education, History and Fun don't often conjure up excitement in children (or many adults for that matter) you can be assured that this book will point you to creative and investigative things to do in and around Paris. The best part is that our children obliviously absorbed the Education and History during the trip. Ms. Gwinner's tour ideas for the Marais district of Paris were of particular interest to our Harry Potter fanclub daughters, as well as leading us to the amazing "science Museum" of Paris... the Musee des Arts et Metiers.Also of note were the quirky and interesting highlights placed throughout the book - like the "Gory Facts." I would have thought this would be more appropriate for teenage boys, but our girls loved the tidbits of historic macabre details. The Catacombs, the guillotine, famous cemetery...Of even more importance to parents are the helpful suggestions for dining, restrooms and parks. Overall, I rate this book very good for the whole family - it provided a new insight into the Paris I have been to many times. I am happy to report that our experience in Paris was very child friendly. Maybe this was because we were prepared by "Paris with Kids."

Valerie Gwinner's the real thing--a Franco-American girl who grew up in both countries and now has Franco-American kids of her own. She knows the unusual and entertaining spots that kids love to return to again and again and that keep their parents intrigued, as well. She realizes that children's attention spans are limited and that they need variety; that museums are fine but that the city's wide open spaces are what they'll remember, as well. She knows they crave the familiar along with the exotic and that they need to engage their energy as well as their brains. If only this book had been available a long time ago there'd have been a whole generation of parents who'd have taken their children traveling as soon as they could walk and talk.

But didn't someone once that we'll always have Paris? And that's the Paris I wanted to share with my son but needed a guide to. For Disney, I'll use the website. I loved this book for its assumption that kids find history and culture cool, too. You just have to share it in a kid-friendly way, and this book constantly reminds us of that: kids need to swim, play, rest; and they don't care if every moment of the trip costs $$--This book's giving me ideas about things I know will appeal to my 10-year-old son at a level that's for him. I also liked the sidebars for tips.