Journey into Summer, first published in 1960, is the third part in naturalist Edwin Way Teale's popular series of four books known as The American Seasons. Following from North With the Spring (1951), the story of a 17,000-mile journey, and Autumn Across America (1956), a 20,000-mile journey from Cape Cod to California, Journey Into Summer takes the reader from northern New England along the shores of the Great Lakes, south through the corn belt, and west to the Rocky Mountains, for a total of 19,000 miles of nature exploration during a typical American summer.

Author Edwin Way Teale (1899-1980) was an American naturalist, photographer, and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer. Teale's writings, due to his keen sense of observation, provided a valuable record of environmental conditions across North America. His most famous book series, The American Seasons, documented over 75,000 miles of automobile travel across North America.