Gathering around a campfire. Cooking food on a stick. Finding constellations. Telling ghost stories, then crawling into a sleeping bag and falling asleep to the amazing silence of the woods — no wonder camping is the top outdoor recreation activity among all Americans ages six and up.

A book that older kids can use on their own or that parents can share with younger children, Camp Out! is a how-to, nature guide, crafts and activity center, cookbook, planner, and motivator. It covers all the basic skills but is also brimming with new ideas — the endlessly inventive author is Lynn Brunelle. Here's how to set up a home away from home — finding the ideal tenting site, making a fire pit, purifying water, going to the (environmentally sound) bathroom. Cook outdoors, with pantry tips and more than 20 recipes for fun foods from Chow Down Chili to Kick-the-Can Ice Cream to — everyone's favorite — S'mores. Tie knots and hitches, use a compass, read a map. There are lively, illustrated field guides to the major American ecosystems, from northeast woods to southwest canyons, prairie to beach, as well as guides to weather watching and star gazing. And dozens of activities, experiments, projects, crafts, and games, including the Stick-in-the-Mud Sun Clock, Campsite Pictographs, Fern Smash T-Shirt, Spore Print Placemats, Sand Candles at the Beach, Flashlight Fun, Shadow Animals, even favorite camp songs and the art of telling a great ghost story.

Bear bags, wilderness showers, and telling the temperature by counting the cricket chirps... Whether you're planning an over night in the backyard or a weekend in the wilderness, this book is packed with stuff to know. The basics, from gearing up to choosing a site to building a tarp tent. Tasty outdoor recipes: Solar Oven Pizza, Chow Down Chili and s' more's of course--with 8 variations.Plus: how to keep a Field Journal, exploring the nighttime sky, creepy campfire stories, and when it's time to go home, leaving no trace. It's everything you need to pick up and head for the hills.For Ages 7 and up.

Lynn Brunelle, a four-time Emmy Award'"winning writer for "Bill Nye the Science Guy," is the author of Pop Bottle Science. She lives an island near Seattle, with her husband and two young children. She is a lifelong camper, pitching her tent from Penobscot Bay to Puget Sound.