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Summary
Summary
From the award-winning author of This Journal Belongs to Ratchet comes an uplifting, hilarious, illustrated middle grade story about a girl on a madcap road trip. Told in journal entries, When I Hit the Road explores making unexpected friends, multigenerational relationships, and finding out that maybe journaling your adventures isn't so bad after all.
Samantha is not exactly excited to spend her entire summer vacation in Florida with her grandma. Or to have to write to her future self in the journal her mom insists she use. But it turns out that Gram has some not-so-boring plans up her sleeve...
Gram and her friend Mimi are going to audition for the Seniors Have Got Talent Karaoke Contest!
A road trip in Gram's new Mustang turns into a series of hilarious mishaps that flip Samantha's summer on its head, especially because, an unexpected person is sharing the ride: a super cute, muscular, athletic-looking, dimple-faced, middle-school boy named Brandon.
It looks like her journal might be worth keeping after all because this summer will be one Samantha will never want to forget.
Follow along with Sam, Gram, Mimi and Brandon in all their road trip shenanigans, including:
A GIANT alligator and the grossest swamp mud you'll ever see The safe-haven Glory Bound Baptist Church (and cat burglar) The hilarious (and terrifying) Kooky Karaoke Contest The Friendly Fill-up Gas Station (and the Restroom of Horror) And morePerfect for summer reading, middle school girls, and students grades 3rd to 8th that want a fun, lighthearted read!
Author Notes
Nancy J. Cavanaugh is the award-winning author of This Journal Belongs to Ratchet and Always, Abigail, which was a Texas Bluebonnet Award nominee. She has a bachelor of science in education and a master's in curriculum and instruction. She was an elementary school teacher for more than fifteen years as well as a library media specialist. She lives in Chicago.
Reviews (2)
Kirkus Review
Rising seventh grader Sam is embarking on a road trip to beat all others. Pressured into visiting her recently widowed grandmother, Sam discovers that she will be accompanying the feisty elderly lady and two other companions--Gram's similarly exuberant and aged pickleball partner, Mimi, and Mimi's hunky eighth grade grandson, Brandon--on a very quirky tour of places no one would ever want to visit in Florida. Stops include an alligator-infested road where their car breaks down, an empty church where they spend an uncomfortable night, a flooded, run-down cabin in a deluge, and a filthy, not-barbecue joint. Many of the stops are interrupted by anxious calls from Sam's controlling, stressed-out, workaholic mom, who's trying to rein in the previously staid, seemingly gone-wild Gram. But it's a voyage of discovery for Sam, who finds she's not really the inept person she viewed herself as. Sam documents all the bizarre misadventures in letters she's writing (at her mother's determined urging) to her future self, revealing both her doubts about her capabilities and her growing understanding of how universal self-doubt is. Despite these insights, the story is mostly fluff and fun: a wild, lighthearted exploration of a summer trip to remember. The small cast of seemingly white characters verge on caricatures, contributing to the overall goofiness of the story. A perfect beach read: summery and silly. (Fiction. 9-12) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
The last place that Sam wants to spend her summer is with her mom and Gram at Sunny Sandy Shores, her grandmother's retirement community in south Florida. Nor does she like the thought of being a guinea pig for her mother's latest idea, the Dear Me Journal. Once they arrive at the airport, Sam and her mom realize that Gram has a new style, a new convertible, and no intention of spending lazy days by the pool. Gram and her best friend, Mimi, have concocted a plan to take Sam and Brandy, Mimi's grandson, on a road trip in order to audition and qualify for the Seniors Got Talent karaoke contest. As in all the best road trip stories, things do not go according to plan. Told through a series of letters Sam writes to herself, the reader is taken along on a madcap series of misadventures with Florida's scenic rural highways as a backdrop. Young readers excitedly anticipating carefree summer fun, or road trips of their own, will enjoy When I Hit the Road.
