Ride [Hardcover]

Stephen Gammell (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 3 and up | Grade Level: P and up

Anyone who has ever taken a trip in the family car knows about backseat battles, but has there ever been a boundary war like this one? Road warriors of all ages will see themselves in this riotous picture book by Stephen Gammell

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Ahh, there's nothing like a nice Sunday drive with the family. But what's this we're hearing from the back seat? "Hey your foot is over!" "Well you're touching!" "Well you're a poopy face!" "Well you have booger breath!" Anyone who has ever taken a road trip with a sibling or two knows the routine. The brother and sister in Stephen Gammell's thrill-a-minute Ride warm up with the usual back-seat antics, a poke here, an insult there, and move quickly on to intergalactic intensity, as Brother blasts off Sister in a spaceship ("Hah... like I'm sorry I'll never see you again?"), prehistoric battle ("You watch out... you're about to be extinct!" "Phew... you already stinct!"), and good, old-fashioned dirty fighting, as Sis dumps the contents of a garbage truck on her brother.

Beware: here's where those epic car fights--the ones that have Mom saying "Do you want me to pull this car over right now?"--can lead, with enough imagination and ire. Stephen Gammell's pastel, pencil, and watercolor illustrations take delighted readers for a joy ride in this humorous and imaginative view of sibling squabbles. Gammell, who received the Caldecott Medal for Song and Dance Man, and the Caldecott Honor for The Relatives Came and Where the Buffaloes Begin, claims that what we see in this book never happened in the back seat of his parents' car when he was a kid. (Ages 3 to 7) --Emilie Coulter

From Publishers Weekly

Readers follow a decidedly bumpy road as they enter Gammell's (Twigboy; Monster Mama) picture book about siblings' backseat bickering. Out for a Sunday drive, in a time well before SUVs and seatbelt laws, a family heads for the open road brother and sister in back, Mom and Dad in front. From the first shout of "Hey your foot is over!" the two kids begin a round of insult-hurling: " `Well you're a poopy face!' `Well you have booger breath!!' " The fight soon devolves into active skirmishing, then leaps into fantasy, with the children throwing bedroom furniture, then continuing their feud in outer space and, eventually, as a pair of dinosaurs. Finally, their good-natured mother offers snacks to calm them down. A closing scene depicting errant squirts of jam implies that the tussling is far from over. Gammell's distinctive pastel-pencil-watercolor compositions are a just-barely-contained cyclone of color and energy. His deployment of a rainbow palette, with occasional splatters, sometimes suggests a Spin-art machine. But his characters' faces, ranging from devilish to lightheartedly unaware, shine, as do his interpretations of the dinosaurs, a bug and a garbage truck. In balance, however, the nasty tone and unpleasant language of the text obscure much of the natural humor. Ages 3-7.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 3 and up
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books; 1st edition (April 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0152026827
• ISBN-13: 978-0152026820
• Product Dimensions: 11.5 x 9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #614,061 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Backseat rivalry, March 18, 2009

By 

R. NOLEN (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Ride (Hardcover)

This book brought back those memories of riding with my brother in the back seat. He'd hit me. I'd yell. I got in trouble. But this book's illustrations say it all. Love it.