Rare is the book that makes painting seem adventurous, but this true-life account of Thomas Moran’s journey to the land called “Yellowstone” does just that. Although Moran “had never ridden a horse, never shot a gun, and never slept in the open air,” his itch to paint the wildness of nature led him to sign up with Dr. Hayden’s seminal journey into the Rockies. Although only one actual Moran painting is included, Judge’s expressive watercolors are visually exciting in their own right, using careful blotches to suggest facial expressions and interlocking swaths of browns and yellows to depict the glorious expanse of a thousand-foot canyon. Most impressive of all are the cataclysmic whites used to illustrate the exploding base of a waterfall (with a tiny Moran sitting at his easel in the foreground). Chronicling the expedition’s many struggles, Judge makes a powerful argument for visiting Yellowstone and appreciating Moran’s efforts. Get readers hooked with this one, and when they’re older, bring on Susanna Reich’s Painting the Wild Frontier (2008).