Are We There Yet?
The First Road Trip Across the USA
Margaret K. McElderry Books · Print & ebook · March 18, 2025
Hitch a ride on the first road trip across the United States of America in this “droll, easygoing” (Booklist, starred review) nonfiction picture book from Ezra Jack Keats Honor winner Stacy McAnulty and New York Times bestselling illustrator Elizabeth Baddeley!
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- Who it’s for
- A comic, bumpy ride through the challenges of America’s first cross-country car trip.
- Themes
- Early automobile history, Cross-country adventure, Competition
- Pacing
- Steady
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Hitch a ride on the first road trip across the United States of America in this “droll, easygoing” (Booklist, starred review) nonfiction picture book from Ezra Jack Keats Honor winner Stacy McAnulty and New York Times bestselling illustrator Elizabeth Baddeley! It’s 1903 when Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson bets fifty dollars that he can drive a horseless carriage (a car) across the USA, from California to New York, in less than three months.
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Considering Dr. Jackson doesn’t know how to drive, there are no highways yet, and everyone else who’s tried the trip has failed, the odds are stacked against him. Still, he hires a bike racer to act as mechanic, and the two set off in Dr. Jackson’s car, the Vermont, with their team mascot, Bud the bulldog. Their trip is far from easy street. The duo must pull the car across streams, drive through deep mud and over rocky terrain, and wait for a stagecoach to bring spare parts. And with no windshield, doors, or a roof, every bump in the road means boingy boingy boingy—until things bounce right out of the car! Then two more teams start out from California, and the race is on! Can a doctor, a bike racer, and a bulldog make it across the finish line first?
Early Roads, Big Bumps
A comic, bumpy ride through the challenges of America’s first cross-country car trip.
Come here for
- Early motoring history with an adventurous, easygoing feel
- A bulldog along for the ride
Expect
- Mud, rough terrain, and a car without a roof or windshield
- A race to reach the finish line first
Where it sits
| Cars & Trucks | 76% |
|---|---|
| 20th Century U.S. | 55% |
| Travel | 40% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- 20th Century U.S.
- U.S. Places
- Cars & Trucks
- Authors
- Stacy McAnulty
- Publisher
- Margaret K. McElderry Books
- Published
- March 18, 2025
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Theme
- Early automobile history · Cross-country adventure · Competition
- Reading lane
- 20th Century U.S.