We've never been great trip planners . . . but we've always managed to grab a few essentials before hitting the road. Twenty years ago it was passports, a Lonely Planet guide and a lightweight down sleeping bag.
These days there's a new category at the top of our list: getting The Right Stories for the road. If we can find the right tales -- usually books-on-tape from our local library -- our boys suddenly forget that they're stuck in the back seat for hours on end. There's less haggling for food and bathroom breaks. There's far less pinching, poking and hitting. Instead, they are transported to somewhere exciting and magical, even if our car is just rumbling along an endless Interstate.
And if we really pick well, the grownups get swept up in the story, too.
Here are a couple of the best picks of recent years:
Rash by Pete Hautman. It's a wickedly funny satire of what the United States could become in 2070 if concerns about safety, politeness, etc. became so widespread and stifling that there isn't room for a rambunctious teenage boy to be himself. Our hero gets in trouble early and is sent to a vast Canadian prison that doubles as a pizza factory. He rebels -- and then spends the rest of the story in a madcap series of schemes to win his freedom. . . . We laughed so hard that it hurt. And we paused the tape a lot for really interesting conversations about all the rules in life. Why some make sense. And why some don't.
Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose (abridged.) We had our doubts about whether this would really work with the kids. It's a recounting of the great Lewis & Clark Expedition of 1804-06, told strictly for grownups. But it's so fast-paced and full of fascinating details that the kids really got into it, too. One of our favorite chatting points: "If you had a time machine and could travel back to 1804, what would you bring to help the expedition?"
Anything by Andrew Clements. He's a former teacher who has a dead-solid-perfect ear for what spirited grade-school kids really care about. Frindle is his best known story, about a boy who defies his teachers to make up a new word -- and see if he can get the whole world to embrace it. The Landry News is perhaps even better -- about a girl who takes over her school newspaper and turns into a crusading force. Suddenly the paper has great power, in ways that seem terrifying until she can figure out how to control them. Things Unseen is intriguing, too. If you've got a child who questions authority a lot (and don't we all!), these are great stories to get your family talking. They're packed full of raw truth about how kids can defend their identities and still make peace (sort of) with the system. Wish I'd read them when I was young.
And, hey, since this is a blog, feel free to add your favorites, too. The more titles that people share, the better this becomes.
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2 comments:
I have a couple of hard-won rules of thumb here:
-A good car tape must be loaded with lively characters and good visual content. Most kids are in love with adventure more than language.
-It should have a range of voices. A deep-voiced monotone reader won't do as well as a cast, or a reader who can effect different characters.
-You should time the story to the drive. Long drive, long story. It's more satisfying than switching in and out of different stories.
-If you pick a good one, be prepared to hear it again and again.
My winners, in the fiction event:
Gold: The BBC radio adaptation of "The Lord of the Rings." At 13 hours, it is a round trip SF-Disneyland tape, almost to the driveway. Great cast and sound effects. The story is edited down almost exactly the same as Peter Jackson's film version (coincidence, Pete?) -- very complex yet clear.
Silver: Douglas Adams reading his "The Hichhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." No matter how well you knew it, you forgot it was this good. He is a fantastic reader, too. Warning: Everybody sits in the car when you've done driving, since listening to the book is probably better than wherever you're going.
Bronze: A Prarie Home Companion's "Pretty Good Jokes." Great for short trips or long. You also win cool points with the kids for letting them hear jokes like, "Your mama is so fat, when she sits on a quarter a booger comes out of George Washington's nose!"
"He said 'booger!'"
Lots of books are just marvelous to share with the kids on tape. Perennial favorite of course is Madeline L'Engel's Wrinkle in Time. And have we done dragons!! Lesson learned: limit your on-tape dragon encounters to one per trip.
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