Hit the Road [Kindle Edition]

Caroline B. Cooney (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 8-10 Sixteen-year-old Brit is illegally driving her Nannie and two other elderly women over three states, trying to get them to their 65th college reunion. The women have shared their lives together and, now frail yet determined, they need Brit's help. Brit, meanwhile, is running on adrenaline. Driving atrociously at first, she is also falsifying where she and Nannie are to her parents, who are on a trip to Alaska. Her cell phone proves to be essential as she talks to Coop, the boy she has loved for ages but who has blatantly snubbed her, and who suddenly takes an interest in her cross-country caper involving a kidnapping of one of the girls. The kidnap victim, Aurelia, has an evil son, Aston III, who is out to steal his mother's fortune, using any method to do so. The tension peaks when Brit meets Aston face to face. Starting out slowly, the book is both a last-hurrah adventure for the women and a beginning one for Brit, yet it is somewhat trite as all the pieces fit together and everything ends happily ever after…. Tracy Karbel, Glenside Public Library District, Glendale Heights, IL
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Gr. 6-9. Brit is a brand new driver when her parents send her to stay with grandmother Nannie while they're off on a cruise. She quickly learns she's going to have to put her driving to the test because Nannie and her college roommates, Florence and Aurelia, are determined to go to their sixty-fifth college reunion. Thus begins an on-the-road, buddy story that precisely captures the impatience--and the warmth--of teenagers, as well as the fragility and stubborn audacity that comes with age. Bullied by Nannie, whose car keys have been taken from her, Brit finds herself driving through the greater Northeast to fulfill her grandmother's plans, which include hiding the trip from Brit's parents, finding Flo's house, and kidnapping Aurelia from the nursing home where her son, Aston, has stashed her. There are plenty of over-the-top moments, and Aston is a villain of the Snidely Whiplash variety. But Cooney masterfully combines nonstop, cleverly plotted action with heartfelt emotion; Brit realistically becomes frustrated with impediments that come with age, even as she valiantly protects her charges. Perhaps it takes an adult to empathize with the aging process, but Brit comes as close as possible to understanding, and she'll make teen readers realize that what really separates them from the elderly is the fact that they are experiencing doors opening, while older people are watching them close. For another on-the-road, cross-generational tale, suggest Joan Bauer's Rules of the Road (1998). Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 352 KB
• Publisher: Laurel Leaf (May 21, 2008)
• Sold by: Random House Digital, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B001A0NP2Y
• Text-to-Speech: Not enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #181,838 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining tale about the search for independence, March 18, 2008

By 

Christina Lockstein "Christy's Book Blog" (Oconto Falls, WI USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Hit the Road (Mass Market Paperback)

Hit the Road by Caroline B. Cooney is another terrific YA title by a prolific author. 16 year old Brit's parents have gone on vacation, leaving her under the care of her grandmother, Nannie. But Nannie has no intention of babysitting her teenage granddaughter or being babysat as well. Nannie and her two lifelong friend are determined to make it to their 65th college reunion, and if that means non-licensed Brit doing the driving and kidnapping a friend as well, so be it. Cooney has a real talent for getting inside teenagers' minds. Brit is selfish and rebellious, all without being unsympathetic. The idea of spending time with Nannie isn't what she wants to spend her free time. But as she spends time with her grandmother, she finds that they are in similar places in their lives. Both are on the verge of independence. Brit is about to break free from her parents' authority, while Nannie is just coming under it. Both struggle with the restraints place upon them, and Cooney manages to make the reality of growing old come alive even for a teen audience. This wonderfully written book is enjoyable to read and has a good message a well about doing what's right, even when it hurts.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Richie's Picks: HIT THE ROAD, May 21, 2006

By 

Richie Partington "Richie's Picks" (Sebastopol, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hit the Road (Hardcover)

"Brit had been there when Mom said to Nannie, 'Your eyes are so bad you can't tell the difference between a trash barrel and a two-year-old at the side of the road. Your knees are so stiff it takes you five minutes to brake. You have to stop driving.' Mom went right into Nannie's purse, fished out her driver's license, cut it in half and tossed it in the garbage. In vain, Nannie pleaded, 'Without a car all I can do is gather dust and stare out the window.' Because Nannie's house was three miles from a quart of milk, a committee meeting or a bridge game.

" 'I've hired an aide,' said Brit's mother briskly. 'She'll take you where you want to go. You won't even notice not having a car.'

"How could you not notice that you didn't have a car? Brit had been noticing that one all her life. She noticed every single kid who got their own car and every single one who didn't."

Now, months later, and exactly eleven days after sixteen-year-old Brittany Anne Bowman has gotten her own drivers license, she finds herself unceremoniously dumped--carless--at Nannie's Connecticut house as her parents head off on a trip to Alaska for a couple of weeks. But Nannie, who no longer moves very fast but is still sharp as a tack, has had quite enough of her daughter's tyranny and is ready to fight back in her own way. She and her three college roommates have formulated secret plans to hit the road together and attend their sixty-fifth year college reunion up in Maine. At that age it could well be their last chance.

But when Brit arrives, and it turns out that Nannie is too small to pilot the rental SUV that's, been delivered to her house, Brit suddenly finds herself behind the wheel of that GMC Safari, chauffeuring a pair of the octogenarians up through New England to a facility where one of the elderly quartet of long time friends has been fraudulently and involuntarily committed to an Alzheimer's ward by her money-grubbing son. Their springing Aurelia from Fox Hills Adult Community leads to wild chases, real dangers, and dirty double crosses.

Some of Brit's maneuvering involves cell phone conversations with hunky computer genius and aspiring filmmaker Cooper James, the young man Brit has had a crush on since seventh grade. (He is also the young man who hasn't spoken a word to her in months, since accidentally discovering that he was the unwitting subject of various documents stored in Brit's laptop, such as "Our Wedding" and "Our Honeymoon Plans.")

HIT THE ROAD is a total hoot. Author Caroline B. Cooney has achieved a very entertaining balance between the slapstick humor involving "the girls," the communications technology aspects that allow Brit's friends to be a vital part of the action without ever being inside the luxury SUV, and the story's a-ha moments, where readers will surly recognize how capricious treatment of the elderly by their adult children can seem so incredibly similar to the manner in which many young adults feel they are treated by their parents.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars BUCKLE UP FOR A FAST-PACED READ!, August 11, 2006

By 

Linda Joy Singleton "Linda Joy Singleton" (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hit the Road (Hardcover)

Caroline Cooney is a master at rapid paced action that takes your breath away.

When I bought HIT THE ROAD, I thought this one looks kind of tame and will be just a light read about a girl helping her grandmother -- NOT! There was nothing light or tame about this exciting adventure. The heroine's downhill race into danger and risk is thrilling. Just when you think things will get better, the danger increases. Caroline Cooney doesn't hold back with consequences, turning a simple drive into a perilous journey.

I couldn't stop flipping pages, eager to find out what happened next, surprised by a few plot turns, and completely satisfied when justice finally prevailed at the end.

It's no wonder that Caroline B. Cooney is one of my favorite authors. Next book I plan to buy of hers: CODE ORANGE.

Linda Joy Singleton