Big Rig - Hardcover

Hawes, Louise

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1682632520 ISBN 13: 9781682632529

Publisher: Peachtree, 2022

Synopsis

Hitch a ride with 11-year-old Hazmat and her dad in their 18-wheeler, Leonardo, for a feel-good road trip across America that keeps on trucking!

Life on the road with Daddy is as good as gets for Hazmat. Together, they've been taking jobs and crisscrossing the US for years. Now Daddy's talking about putting down roots—somewhere Hazmat can go to a real school and make friends. Somewhere Daddy doesn't have to mail-order textbooks about "nature's promise to all women." Somewhere Mom's ashes can rest on a mantel and not on a dashboard.

While everything just keeps changing, sometimes in ways she can't control, Hazmat isn't ready to give up the freedom of long-distance hauling. Sure the road is filled with surprises, from plane crashes and robo trucks to runaway hitchhikers and abandoned babies, but that all makes for great stories! So Hazmat hatches a plan to make sure Daddy's dream never becomes a reality. Because there's only one place Hazmat belongs: in the navigator's seat, right next to Daddy, with the whole country flying by and each day different from the last.

Award-winning author Louise Hawes writes with an easy, conversational voice and an "I'll never grow up" spirit that cheerfully thumbs its nose at traditional coming-of-age narratives. This heart-tugging, laugh-out-loud portrait of a father and daughter is a satisfying journey across modern America you won't want to miss.

About this title

About the Author

Louise Hawes is an American academic and author of more than a dozen novels and several short story collections. She has served as Writer in Residence at the University of New Mexico and The Women's University of Mississippi, and also as a John Grisham Visiting Writer at the University of Mississippi. Louise helped found the MFA Program in Writing for Children and Young Adults at Vermont College. She currently teaches there.

Reviews

Gr 4-6-Hazel's mother died when she was a newborn, so it's been just her and Dad trucking on the road together. Hazel is homeschooled by her truck driver father (who also has a PhD in English Literature), and even though he keeps talking about getting a home and Hazel going to school one day, she wants to put off that future for as long as possible. To Hazel, the road is home, and she wants other people to understand that, too. As the plot progresses, Hazel and her father find themselves in one unbelievable situation after another-encountering a teenage runaway, rescuing a van of school children, and saving a cat from an airplane crash to name a few-and Hazel uses them all for her trucker script she wants to send to Hollywood executives. While Hawes has a unique premise with lots of potential, it can feel like readers are on a very long trucking trip with a lot of curves and one too many rest stops. Many of the things that happen to Hazel and her father could happen individually, but it seems highly improbable that so many things would happen to them in such a short span of time. And while readers might be able to understand that all of these events bring Hazel and her father closer together while teaching important life lessons, it becomes too much to suspend disbelief. VERDICT A fair purchase for libraries seeking books about father-daughter relationships or trucker life.-Kerri L. Williamsα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Edition details

• Publisher: Peachtree
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1682632520
• ISBN 13: 9781682632529
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272