Treehouses, Huts and Forts

I chose to review this book because I love building things, and I wanted to share my enthusiasm with the zero people who actually read these posts. All my life I have built things, and I actually built a treehouse in Maine once.

How to Build Treehouses, Huts, and Forts gives you step-by-step instructions to build all sorts of shelters. For treehouses, it gives you instructions on how to pick the right tree, how to make the platforms and floors, as well as some carpentry tips. After that, it gives you materials lists and how-tos for the more difficult parts of the different builds. The book also tells you how to make a catapult, tennis ball cannon, and treasure chest, along with several snow forts.

One of the treehouses in the book is a Mountain Stream Hut. It is basically a bridge with a roof over the center. I really like it due to its simplicity and practicality. It can be used as a bridge for hikers and backpackers, or even an overnight shelter. And, as the book points out, if you build it in some woods, you can cut down a few trees to make it, rather than buying the supplies at a hardware store. I would really like to build this “hut” somewhere.

This book reminds me of several other books I have about building treehouses and huts because they are very similar in content, only with different house designs. I also have a book that doesn’t really tell you how to build treehouses but has many different pictures of awesome ones people have built. I have a treehouse book called Treehouses and Playhouses You Can Build by David and Jeanie Stiles, the same people who wrote this book.

I think the author of this book is trying to get kids outside and building things, and attempting to provide most of the important information that they would need.

This is a great book, from my treehouse loving, totally unbiased point of view. I would give it a solid six out of five, with an extra helping of maple syrup goodness. Hey, syrup comes from trees, I thought the joke might work.