5 Books to Read While You’re Traveling With Kids

Sisters, by Raina Telgemeier
After my nine-year-old daughter, Maya, read Raina Telgemeier’s debut graphic novel, Smile, based on the time the author knocked out her two front teeth in sixth grade, she immediately devoured the rest of the books in the series. Sisters, the second book, is perfect for a road trip, telling the tale of the family trip Telgemeier took from San Francisco to Colorado Springs when she was 14, an eventful journey that included plenty of bickering among the sisters and the escape of Raina’s pet snake, Mango, in the car. Maya said she loved this one because “it’s very realistic—the children are always fighting.”

On the Shores of Silver Lake, by Laura Ingalls Wilder
A number of the Little House books are perfect for a road trip, including Little House on the Prairie, in which the Ingalls family travels by covered wagon from Wisconsin to Kansas, and On the Banks of Plum Creek, in which the family moves from Kansas back to Wisconsin and then on to Minnesota. But the book I like best for a road trip is On the Shores of Silver Lake, which starts with the devastating news that Laura’s older sister Mary has been blinded by scarlet fever. Before the Ingalls travel west on a train, Pa instructs Laura to be Mary’s eyes, and this is how the future author mastered the art of careful description. She tells Mary, “Outside the big windows, on both sides, the country is going by. The stubble fields are yellow, and haystacks are by the barns, and little trees are yellow and red in clumps around the houses.” If the kids get really bored as you drive, ask them to describe what they see out the car window to you as if you were Mary.

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, by Kate DiCamillo
In The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, Kate DiCamillo writes, “If you have no intention of loving or being loved, then the whole journey is pointless.” Edward Tulane is a china rabbit given to a 10-year-old girl in the 1930s. When she goes on a voyage on the Queen Mary, the rabbit is lost in the ocean. Eventually he’s found, and travels far and wide as he’s passed from person to person, touching many lives along the way. Says Maya, “My favorite thing about it was that all his new owners loved him, and all of them lost him.”

 The Horse and His Boy, by C.S. Lewis
Summer vacation is the perfect time to dive into a classic series, and perhaps the best Narnia book for a road trip is The Horse and His Boy. C.S. Lewis tells the story of a boy named Shasta, raised as a slave by an old man in Calormen, a territory south of Narnia. When Shasta learns he’s to be sold to a cruel master, a talking horse from Narnia, Bree, convinces him to flee with him north to the country where they belong. Along the way they meet up with Aravis, a Calormene girl fleeing an arranged marriage, and her talking Narnian horse, Hwin. The four have plenty of adventures, and even run into everybody’s favorite lion, Aslan, as they make their desperate journey to Narnia and freedom. Maya said, “I like how Shasta meets Aslan, and learns he can become different things.”

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum
If Kerouac’s On The Road is the classic American road trip novel for adults, then The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is its equivalent for kids. Who needs Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty when you’ve got the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, and Dorothy? “I like how the Tin Man was just so happy all the time,” Maya said. Perfect, kid, go with that thought on hour 10 of our drive to Yellowstone.