See You Down the Road: A Novel (Booklist Editor's Choice. Books for Youth (Awards)) [Hardcover]

Kim Ablon Whitney (Author)

Book Description

Series: Booklist Editor's Choice. Books for Youth (Awards) | Publication Date: February 10, 2004

A fascinating glimpse into the lives of Irish Travelers in America, from a new voice in YA literature.

Welcome to Bridget’s world: Her family lives in a trailer, moving every so often; she’s engaged and her wedding is sooner than she’d like; and her parents want her to quit high school so she can help more with the family business. The problem is Bridget’s not sure the Traveler life is for her anymore. She feels guilty about pulling scams, and she’s definitely not sure she wants to get married, even though Patrick’s a good guy. But Bridget’s always been the good girl who does what she’s told, and there’s no way her parents will let her out of the wedding. And if she leaves the life, she’s out of the family for good.

Tautly written, with a riveting storyline and sympathetic characters coping with universal themes of family and social pressure, See You Down the Road will captivate readers to the very end.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up--Bridget Daugherty, 16, and her family are Travelers, Gypsies if you will, members of a group who live by their own laws and traditions. They believe anyone who isn't a Traveler is "country" and fair game for the scams and shoplifting that are the way they earn their living. They believe the skills necessary to be an effective thief (although they would never use the term) should be honed and taught to their children. Travelers move into a city, practice their craft, and then move on before the local police get too suspicious. Bridget's parents are worried about her as she wants to keep going to school, isn't interested in the immediate marriage her parents have planned, and isn't comfortable with all the lying that is part of her lifestyle. The story traces her struggle between being her parents' daughter and breaking away as her older sister did. It ends with the reader knowing that Bridget, although she has been seesawing between staying with the Travelers and marrying her fiancé and leaving home, will opt for the former. Although readers may come to sympathize with Bridget and her predicament, the other characters remain one-dimensional stereotypes. The story has an interesting premise, but it isn't fully developed, and the constant use of profanity seems gratuitous and unnecessary.--Nancy P. Reeder, Heathwood Hall Episcopal School, Columbia, SC
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Gr. 9-12. "We were good at being just like everyone else--except when it came to a few important things. Like how we made our money." Sixteen-year-old Bridget's family are Travelers; they move across the U.S. in trailers and support themselves through con jobs and stealing. But Bridget has grown deeply conflicted about the strict Traveler ways. She wants choices--to go to school and to choose her own husband (although her betrothed, Patrick, is sexy and kind). And she's not sure she can handle "a life of everyday scams." When Bridget joins her uncle in a lucrative, high-risk swindle, she finally makes some surprising, difficult decisions about her future. In her taut debut novel, Whitney offers a fascinating view of a family whose dynamics are familiar--especially the teens who strain to separate their own desires from their parents' expectations. But here, success and praise are earned by stealing. Bridget's first-person narration, sprinkled with raunchy humor and some expletives, is strong and convincing, whether she's asking furious questions about her culture's double standards, sharply observing why scams work, or wishing that making out with Patrick didn't have to lead to marriage. A closing note offers a disclaimer that this fictional portrait isn't meant to represent hard truths about Travelers. Still, this is a wholly absorbing read that raises provocative questions about culture, as well as character, that teens will want to discuss. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers; First Edition edition (February 10, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375824677
• ISBN-13: 978-0375824678
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,858,638 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kim Ablon Whitney's novels have earned special distinction from the American Library Association, Bank Street College of Education, and Booklist Magazine. A graduate of Tufts University, Kim has an M.F.A. in creative writing from Emerson College. She lives in Newton, MA with her husband and young sons.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What an engrossing read!, May 21, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: See You Down the Road: A Novel (Booklist Editor's Choice. Books for Youth (Awards)) (Hardcover)

I really, really loved this book. I learned a lot about another culture even while reading about characters who seemed like very real, typical teenagers. The book asks a lot of difficult and intriguing questions, and it's never predictable. There are lots of surprises throughout the book. I hope to read more by this author!

5.0 out of 5 stars Courtesy of Teens Read Too, December 31, 2006

By 

TeensReadToo "Eat. Drink. Read. Be Merrier." (All Over the US & Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: See You Down the Road (Mass Market Paperback)

Bridget and her family are Travelers. They're a little-known group of people in America who travel around the country, making money in usually illegal ways, and keep to themselves, with their own traditions and way of life. People who aren't Travelers are called Country, and Travelers usually isolate themselves from these people. They don't trust them, and only interact with them to scam money off of them. Travelers only go to Country schools for a few years, just long enough to know what they need to.

Bridget is a little different from many Travelers in that way. She works Country jobs, as a cashier, and she's been going to Country schools years longer than most other Traveler teenagers. Still, though, she keeps to the Traveler way most of the time. She and her friend, Ann, make their money by ripping off the local K-mart in whatever town they're in. Her parents have arranged a marriage for her, with Ann's brother, Patrick. Her brother, Jimmy, has grown up helping their father fix driveways and roofs with watered-down sealant to make a better profit by scamming Country people.

Bridget doesn't always like her life as a Traveler. She isn't sure she wants to marry Patrick, even though he's a nice guy and she does like him, but she's never see any way out of it. Then her uncle, Big Jim, takes Bridget, Jimmy, and Patrick with him all the way to Arizona, where they'll pull off the biggest scam that Bridget's ever been involved in. They'll sell condos that don't meet the building codes, and then run off with the money. The beauty of it is, the contractor won't dare tell on them, as he's the one who hired them to sell condos that don't meet building codes.

In Arizona, Bridget has some time to think about a lot of things, and maybe even figure out what she wants. But then she makes a discovery about her family, one that could change everything for Bridget...The choice is hers, but what will she decide?

Before reading SEE YOU DOWN THE ROAD, I had never heard of Travelers. I don't think many people have, but they're real people, and reading about them was very interesting. Their way of life is very different from the way most of us live, and this is an eye-opening book. Many of us don't realize how differently some people live from us, not just in far away places but right here in the United States.

On top of that, SEE YOU DOWN THE ROAD is full of amazing characters, and is very well written. All of the characters are well drawn, realistic, and three-dimensional; even the very minor characters seem alive. The ending is not what we might expect from this sort of book, but it fits well, and is one that I really liked. It wasn't predictable, and it was still a happy ending. Whitney's ending, I felt, stayed true to the characters and flowed with the rest of the story wonderfully.

Reviewed by: Jocelyn Pearce

4.0 out of 5 stars Is the Traveler's life for Bridget?, November 30, 2004

By 

Lyn (Virginia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: See You Down the Road: A Novel (Booklist Editor's Choice. Books for Youth (Awards)) (Hardcover)

I picked this up from my library one day to read over the summer, and I'm so glad I did. It didn't take me that long to read, because I really got into it. It is the story of a girl who's family are Travelers, like gypsies. They don't have real jobs, and they don't have permanent homes. They basically make their money by ripping people off and taking their money while doing odd jobs for them or selling items to them.

The main character Bridget starts o question whether the life of a Traveler is the one for her. She has always wondered what it would be like to live in a real house and get an important job, and have a normal family. She wouldn't have to constantly be on the run, and she could go to the same school for more than a year and make real friends. The main character also feels a bit guilty sometimes about living this dishonest life of ripping people off.

Meanwhile, Bridget is engaged to her older brother's friend Patrick, which was arranged by the parents of both families. Patrick is nice enough, and he's really hot, but Bridget wants to make her own choices about who she marries.

Then, later in the book when Bridget finds out that her family has kept a secret from her, Bridget has to make an important decision about what kind of life she wants for herself.

The ending was good on one hand, but on the other hand, I was upset with it. However, this is a great book that I recommend checking out from the library. It was interesting to learn how the "Travelers" lived.