Big Rig
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Eleven-year-old Hazel Sampson—trucker handle Hazmat—narrates this action-packed novel about her long-haul adventures with her father, an English literature professor turned trucker. Following Hazel's mother's death a week after her birth, Hazel went to live with family friends Mazen and Serena until her dad "figured out how to stop drinking and start loving again." Now, the two criss-cross the country in big rig Leonardo, a long-nose Peterbilt, listening to audiobooks, homeschooling from the road, and chatting with the ashes of Hazel's mother. Though Hazel's dad fears professional obsolescence in the face of driverless robo-trucks, Hazel aspires to the vocation—if she can find a way to extend the way of life she loves so dearly. As part of this effort, Hazel comes up with an idea to glamorize trucking through film. Through Hazel's winning, practical voice, Hawes (The Language of Stars) sketches the close relationship between navigator daughter and driver father as well as the memorable cast they find on the road, including an abandoned baby, a teenage runaway who dreams of stardom, and a kitten who's the sole survivor of a plane crash. The heroine charms completely, as does this portrait of life on the road. Hazel and her father present as white; Mazen and Serena are Black. Ages 8–12.
