Customer Reviews

Electric Dreams: One Unlikely Team of Kids and the Race to Build the Car of the Future

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Caroline Kettlewell has written an inspirational book that captures the essence of the people behind the successful and now world-renowned electric car team from northeastern North Carolina.

From the old codger shop teacher Harold Miller, to the young, energetic educator from California, Eric Ryan, Kettlewell has painted a lifelike picture of the people involved in this project. These are people you begin to care about as the story unfolds.

It's evident from reading this book that only Divine Intervention many times along the way made the project successful. If John Parker had not been friends with Miller and knew that he had been interested in building an electric car for quite some time, Miller would never have been chosen. If Ryan had not decided to move to a rural community in North Carolina and live with Parker, the project clearly would not have been successful. If Randy Shillingburg had not known Parker and had faith in his friends in North Carolina, the project would never have even begun. And if the wonderful group of students and other teachers had not decided to devote their free time on evenings and weekends, the team's electric car would never have been completed on time.

Kettlewell's story also makes a strong environmental statement. Her book questions how a group of students and teachers from poor, rural schools could build an environmental-friendly vehicle -- while the nation's automakers are reluctant to do the same a decade later.

Electric Dreams is a true story that makes one think, while providing an inspirational message for anyone who believes that obtacles can be overcome and students from even the poorest, most rural schools can be successful.

Berkeley graduate Eric Ryan's journey to North Carolina to an improvised high school where his encounter with Harold Miller would lead to an electric car's design and development would change his life. Electric Dreams: One Unlikely Team Of Kids And The Race To Build The Car Of The Future documents how an unlikely band of kids would build the car of the future in the heart of NASCAR country, beating the odds to win a high school competition. An exciting and true story of determination and true grit - and fast cars.

The quality of writing and the humaness of this story should tickle the cockles of your heart as it did mine as this is all about the underdog achieving the impossible. You will become part of the team to crete an electric car from absolutely nothing using the expertise of a few noble men who had to learn while on-the-job. This is done by a handful of teachers in a high school located in Northampton County, North Cajrolina noted for its majority of "poor people." The students are the drivers and the teachers the guiders in a story that makes you feel good all over with a group of young people that overcome being made fun of and do accomplish the impossible.

Once in a while, not all the time, but once in a while you need to read a book like this one, just to make you feel like there is at least hope in the world. As the author says on her web site: "I decided to cut loose and have some fun with my second book. The result is the lively true tale of long odds and underdogs, Electric Dreams. In these times when there seems to be a bottomless supply of overwhelmingly depressing and discouraging news from every quarter, I thought we could use a good, inspiring read to remind us that we all have the power to help change the world."

When a school from the backwoods of nowhere can put together a team of kids, teachers, and the community to win an electric car competition, it's not major news- nobody is bleeding, it won't make the television. But it just might make these kids turn out a lot better than they would otherwise. And it just might give all of the readers a good feeling in the bottom of the stomach.

This is a simple little book, you already know the story, but it's written with a flair that makes it read like a mystery novel. You know those kids are going to win, but Ms. Kettlewell makes you feel every little victory, every little mishap. Brilliant book.

There is one little point there at the end. "Why can a bunch of high-school students manage what the big car companies insist can't be done?" As the last words in the book say, "It don't make sense."

It's not necessary to have any particular interest in electric automobiles, or any sort of automobiles, to thoroughly enjoy this engaging book. It's as much about people daring to dream and bucking the odds as it is about cars (though Ms. Kettlewell does make a compelling case for the development of electric cars, and an even more compelling one to stop being dependent on oil). The author had a great cast of characters to work with, and she really makes these kids and their teachers, and their struggle to build a viable electric auto, come alive. The prose here is almost electric, the way it sparkles and zings, and the final scenes, in which the students put their car through the paces on an honest-to-God NASCAR track will have you squirming with tension and body English and rooting for these underdogs to triumph. A sterling example of how a real life story, when it's written well, can outshine fiction.

I couldn't stop reading, especially after the kids got to the raceway. The story unfolds like a movie and it manages to be both hilarious and inspiring at the same time. I felt like I knew all the people when it was over, and I was so sorry to leave them. Fortunately Kettlewell explains what happens to them all after the competition. It made me want to zip out and buy an electric car, and it also made me want to send my kid to a school with teachers like this. Amazing story!

I found the characters captivating and fresh. Especially the auto shop teacher. He came off as a wonderful person who plays the country boy card not crochety like another reviewer had mentioned. I would like to see this book become a movie, its got all the right "elements" and needs to be told. You will read this book at a quick pace and then have to reread it to catch all the details.

If you have any intrest in project based education this is the book that

This was a good idea for a book and the author skillfully weaves a page-turningly engaging account for readers of varied interests. Looked at one way, it's the story of how a diverse corps of high school students, teachers, administrators, and volunteers from the rural South came together to build an alternative energy vehicle for a competition. Applied teaching and learning at its best, it made for a fine mix of education, private enterprise, and voluntarism, and you get a good view of how it came about.

Looked at another way, it's simply an exciting story with involving characters. For example, when student/driver Katrina "Eggfoot" DeLoatch is struggling through her laps at Richmond International Raceway, it's stirring stuff (incidentally, she became the first black female on a NASCAR track to . . . well, you read the story)!

Along the way, you get a good sense of the cultural context, the regional strengths of the South, the richness of human diversity as evidenced by the mix of personalities who strengthened the team each in his or her own way, how the vehicle evolved, the team's advances and setbacks, the strengths, weaknesses and workings of both internal combustion gasoline engines and electric vehicles (EVs), and more. There's a lot in this book, yet it's a brisk read.

As I'm particularly interested in teaching and learning, I was especially appreciative of the breadth and depth of theoretical and practical learning that students, teachers, and community volunteers gained from this. As the enterprising administrator who initiated the endeavor saw it, such a project could change a student's life, giving "a kid reason to care about ingenuity and perseverance and a true mastery of difficult subjects--the physics of friction and motion, the chemistry of energy, the principles of aerodynamics and acceleration, and the fundamentals of amps, watts, and electromagnetism. It would break across traditional school boundaries, combining resources and talent, science classes and vocational-technical, the kids who were good with their hands and the ones accustomed to working just with their heads, as a team, to learn from and appreciate each others' knowledge and abilities. It would make the students look beyond the world of northeastern North Carolina, to understand the science of air pollution or the politics of transportation. It would be fun." And the students saw that the teachers were learning, too -- and enjoying it. Needless to say, American education could use much more of this sort of thing, and one hopes that readers will generate ideas of their own as a result of reading this.

Some audiences for the book: those interested in education; grassroots activists for socially and environmentally responsible causes; car buffs and race fans; those who enjoy an entertaining can-do story of humans overcoming the odds to achieve; those interested in the American South.

Electric Dreams, an account of a group of high school kids from a remote part of North Carolina who work together to build an electric car, should leave you feeling inspired.

The writing style matches the story - it simple and fast-paced. I suppose that comes from the author's background as a reporter. Caroline Kettlewell doesn't let anything get in the way of the facts, because they alone are more than enough to drive you on to the next page.

I have been to this part of North Carolina. It is a place with lots of wide open spaces, plenty of timber, and peanut farms. Plenty of birds migrate through here each year. It is a place where you can find a lot of old Ford Escorts and Chevy S-10s. It is definitely a place where the expression of the phrase "number 10" is followed quickly by the thought of "Ricky Rudd." It has 13 percent college graduates, the median household income is about $23,000, and more than 80 percent of the kids are on free and reduced lunch.

Unfortunately, these are some coincidental forces that conspire to make it seem like this is not a place where you would expect to find path breaking innovations in engineering. It is not a place where your average Berkeley-educated young person can move into town and expect a welcome. All of those elements are present in Kettlewell's story. To find out that this really happened here is to be refreshed.

This is a story that might be interesting to anyone concerned about small towns or about eastern North Carolina. It is also one more example of how well the Teach for America program is working across our country. More broadly, its a great piece of non-fiction. This really happened. Find out about it.

This was a wonderful book. She portrayed Miller & Ryan perfectly. I had the wonderful opportunity of being a member of the NEAT the year after the events in her book took place. She captured every detail perfectly and I was able to relive a wonderful part of my life. Once you pick up this book you will not be able to put it down until you have read the last page!!