Fun Reads Friday: Enjoy a crazy Road Trip with the Paulsens

Not only do I write middle grade humorous fiction, I read it. (Pro tip: Research is a blast when you love what you’re doing.)

A few weeks back, I came across a delightful road trip book titled, cleverly, Road Trip. It’s a hoot!

Gary Paulsen, a prolific author of books for middle grades and teens, wrote this novel with his son Jim, a sculptor. It happened sort of by accident.

Jim Paulsen told his dad about the latest dog he rescued from the pound. After he hung up the phone, Gary Paulsen wrote a scene about a father and son rescuing a homeless dog. He sent it to Jim.

To his surprise, Jim took the characters, picked up the story, and added a school bus to the mix. So Gary wrote another scene. Then Jim. Then Gary… you get the idea.

By the time they were done, they had a book about Ben, his dad, and their border collie Atticus taking a road trip to rescue a puppy.

Dad has quit yet another job so he can devote his full time to his newest passion, flipping houses. Fourteen-year-old Ben is angry that this means he won’t get to go to hockey camp, even though his folks had promised.

Dad thinks the road trip will help them reconnect. To get even, Ben invites his eighteen-year-old buddy Theo, a reformed thug trying not to go back to jail, in hopes of irritating his dad.

When their old pickup truck breaks down, they borrow a school bus—and the cranky mechanic who fine-tuned it. Before long, a waitress named Mia quits her job and joins the cross-country rescue trip.

Most of the story is narrated by Ben, but at the end of every chapter, we hear from Atticus. Yep, Atticus the border collie, who gives us the observant dog’s eye view of what’s really going on—including that somebody is trailing them to get to Theo.

Among the wacky adventures, the school bus drag races a police cruiser. But it’s the trooper who drives the bus, and Dad who slides behind the wheel of the police car. Crazy stuff.

And that’s how this book is, a quick, easy, and sometimes silly read. If you need things to be a little more on the serious side, you can skip to Atticus’s takes on the action.

Now comes the part in which I’m supposed to tell you how this book shows the importance of family, giving people who aren’t like you a chance, and rescuing dogs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, let’s skip the big people talk. What you need to know is that this book is fun. Leave it at that. If you accidentally learn something of value along the way, hey, these things happen. For now, sit back in the big, ol’ souped-up school bus and enjoy the Road Trip.

As for me, I see that Gary and Jim wrote a sequel, Field Trip. I need to track that one down and read it next.

P.S. Happy New Year!