Three images from my childhood reading are permanently etched on my mind: a boy diving deep into the sea to rescue his ivory seagull; a tiny carved Indian sitting in a canoe atop a snow-covered mountain waiting for spring-melt to start his journey; a lightning-struck tree dying from the top down and silhouetted against a red and purple sunset (in order: Seabird, Paddle-to-the-Sea, Tree in the Trail).

Each of these was created by Holling Clancy Holling (1900-1973), author and illustrator (with his wife, Lucille Webster Holling) of books that combine geography and history in adventure tales that take readers on voyages across North America and through the world’s oceans. When Houghton Mifflin reprinted some of these in the 1970s, I was so happy to finally be able to get my own copies.

With full-color drawings on every right-hand page, and text and pen-and-ink margin drawings on every…