Great Kid Books for Road Trips | Ramona Morrow Books

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Ramona Morrow | Canadian Children's Book Author and Blogger

Great Kid Books For Road Trips

September 08, 2020 by Ramona Morrow

What parent wouldn't like their kid(s) to sleep all the way to the end of their road trip?

If parents could have their wish come true, it would be, no fighting in the car; no one asking questions, sleeping all the way, everybody getting along, just perfect little children. But that's not real life. That's just a fantasy.

I don't think there isn't a parent out there who hasn't heard these questions. "Are we there yet?", "How many hours does it take?", "Where do we stop to eat?", "Where do we sleep?", "Where do I go to the bedroom?", "Do I pee on the road?", "How long before we get there?"

These were all of the questions an 8-year-old Jamie had. He would ask me questions before I even got to the edge of town. Our first road trip together I realized his concerns were real and he had to have the answers or he just wouldn't stop asking. He would be like the energizer bunny and keep on going and going until I got exhausted answering all of his questions.

Over time, I learnt to prepare Jamie for our road trips whether they were short trips or long trips. I would sit Jamie down to inform him we are going on a road trip. This is what I would say, "honey we are going on a road trip. This is where we are going - Grandma's house or Boston, Massachusetts. This is where we need to fuel. This is where we are going to have our meals. You can pick the restaurant. This is how long it will take. Make sure you bring what you are going to play with, your Pokémon, Buzz Lightyear, and Nintendo Pocket Game Boy, etc. Bring your homework and your reading material (comics, Harry Potter books, and Goosebumps books). To this day, Jamie still loves to read. Just let me know when you have to go to the bathroom and I'll do my best to find one for you." I always brought one toilet paper roll for emergencies, the just-in-case moments. Sometimes when Jamie was awake and I was approaching a town I would ask, "Do you have to go to the bathroom?"

When Jamie's questions were answered he seemed a lot more relaxed and enjoyed our road trips. He even requested the music he wanted to hear. The rock station was his favorite. As we traveled along the highway it was Jamie's job to find a radio station he wanted to listen to. He learnt how to control the temperature that was suitable for both of us.

You have to remember this was in 1996 when I started my long distant trucking (semi-truck driver) career. I always drove a 53-foot reefer trailer or dry van. I told Jamie we were glorified Relocation Engineer's (taking products from one place to another) and he was my co-pilot. This was backed up by my fellow truck driver's who over the CB radio would say, "Hey there such-and-such company I see you have a co-pilot." I would proudly reply, "Yes, I do. He's doing a terrific job as co-pilot." I was extremely proud of Jamie and if I could have cried I would of, but I had to keep my eyes on the road instead.

Jamie did one amazing thing for me, he though I needed company while I drove, he figured he would stay awake and be on my schedule. He tried so hard but always fell  asleep strapped into the passenger seat with his head resting part-way on the seat and his favourite pillow pressed up against the passenger door. But he did a terrific job, he was up and awake for 10 hours straight before he passed out.

When Jamie had more than three days out of school, he travelled with me across Canada (from Toronto, Ontario to Vancouver, British Columbia) and the United States (from New York, New York or Los Angeles, California depending on my load). For years, our road trips were just the two of us.

We have seen some fantastic countryside from the mountains to prairies and oceans. We dipped our toes in the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, and even the Gulf of Mexico. We watched the sunrise and sunset. We watched the moon phases go from quarter moon to full moon. And we drove through spring, summer, fall, and winter seasons. We had hot weather, cold weather, rainstorms, hailstorms, snowstorms, and whiteout conditions. Our road conditions ranged from perfect to black ice or white ice.

But together we trudged through it making us stronger individuals who bonded because of the same experiences. I watched my son grow up and become a confident person. Our road trips were the best education he could get.

We watched the amazing fireworks on the Fourth of July entering Minneapolis on I-94. We visited Frank Slide Interpretive Centre in Crowsnest Pass, BC and Crowsnest Museum in Coleman, AB. We saw President Birthplace location signs, Laura Ingalls Wilder's home, baseball stadiums, football stadiums, hockey arenas, and beaches (Fort Myers Beach, Naples Beach, and Muscle Beach).

We drove over New York bridges painted battleship grey and watched huge ships load shipping containers. We drove by Billy the Kids hideout cave near Alto, New Mexico. We came across the Home on the Range road sign in Sentinel Bute, North Dakota (I always thought that was just a song, not a real place), and of course, tons of truck stops where we fueled, slept, ate at the buffets, showered, and did our laundry in the middle of the night. Those were the good ol' days.

I always made Jamie feel that he was important on our road trips. I told him, he was my co-pilot and his job, at the time, was very important. I needed help watching for animals, keep an eye out for bad looking clouds, read the highway signs along the shoulder (I would correct him when he pronounced what he was reading wrong), he read the mileage signs and let me know when our rest stop areas we coming up so we could stretch our legs or take a quick break. Jamie learnt that birds flying into the windshield was something I could not avoid because it was what birds did when they would fly in front of a moving vehicle at highway speeds. The first time I hit a bird Jamie yells, "Mommy you killed it! You killed it! How could you?"

We found traffic signs we have never seen before: Stay Off Of Grass - Rattlesnakes (you don't have to tell me twice), Open Cattle Range (huh!), If You Hit This Sign - You Will Hit That Bridge (okay, better not do that), Steep Cliff (looks like a long way down), Runaway Truck Lanes (better find that right gear and don't burn out the brakes), Correctional Facility Area - Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers (heck no!), Huge Boulders Rolling (pretty scary), Alligator Alley Toll Road (holy cow), Do Not Feed The Alligators (really you need a sign for that?), etc.

By the end of my trucking days, Jamie knew the difference between an Interstate Route sign from a US Route sign. He knew the difference between a deer and an antelope. He saw what an armadillo looked like. Witnessed sand squalls in Saskatchewan. Furious thunderstorms and lightning in Florida. Jamie and I tried black-eyed peas and grits for the first time at a truck stop somewhere in Texas. Compliments from the waitress as soon as she found out we didn't know what they were nor what they looked like. Witnessed our first green alien and spaceship entering Roswell, New Mexico. Touched the world's tallest thermometer in Baker, California. Jamie knows the difference between fog and smog driving down the mountains entering Los Angeles, California. Fog doesn't smell smog does.

Jamie knew what a construction zone meant and squealed the first time we went through one - "Mommy we cant fiiiiittttt!!!!!" We carried Canadian money and American money. Jamie knew the difference. He thought American money looked funny because it wasn't colored like our money was. I taught him how to read a road map. He would highlight the route we would take with a yellow marker. Jamie found out rattlesnakes were not only in the grass they were also on the food menu too!

Jamie and I had fun moments on our road trips playing games as I Spy with My Little Eye, Punch Bug, Nickle for every animal he saw like deer, moose, etc. Singing to songs having our own karaoke moment.

Example of an interesting moment: One day, I was driving and Jamie had his side window partway open eating a large bag of potato chips. We were listening to music and Jamie had his little legs bouncing up and down to the beat in the song. All of a sudden, a grasshopper came flying though the window and landed in his bag of chips. Jamie screams like nothing I heard before. His chips went flying landing on the floor of the truck. I said, "What happened?" Jamie replies, "This huge bug flew into my chips." I pulled on over which isn't easy for a semi-truck. I saw this grasshopper jumping around, "Jamie catch it!" Jamie replies, "I can't catch it. The bug keeps hopping and jumping all over the place."

Eventually, we caught the grasshopper and returned it back outside. We had to clean up the chips. Jamie rolled up his window and never rolled it back down again. He was afraid of what else was going to come flying through the window. Jamie calmed down and I had to collect myself for driving. After that, we carried on with our day. We will never forget that episode. There were many more head-shaking moments during our road trips until the very last one when I decided to hang up a big rig hat for a Greyhound bus one.

Below are 20+ Great Kid Books for Road Trips to keep your child occupied until you get to the end of your road Trip. On behalf of the authors and illustrators, we hope your child is enthralled, enchanted, charmed, and captivated by the interesting and heartfelt stories within the pages of our books. These books can be purchased either by audiobook, eBook, or paperback book. Hope you have quiet times ahead on your next family road trip!

How did your family road trips go? What book(s) did your child bring for their road trip? How did you entertain your kids along the way? Did you have minor mishaps? Did you have complete disastrous road trips? Place your comments in the Facebook Comment section below.

Click link below for a FREE download of Great Kid Books for Road Trips list as a PDF.

Adobe Spark Slideshow for Great Kid Books for Road Trips include Jamie's Pet, Coop the Cat, Void & Onix, Pink and Purple Bob, Something's Eating the Garden, Mystery of the Red Stone, Jeremy's Shorts, Olivia's Iguana According to the Lizards, The Unicorn in a Tutu and the Stolen Pumpkin, Milo and the Mustang, Dear Mr. Wasn't Me, Allison the Alligator, Ferdinand and the Vanilla Ice Cream, The World Belongs to Animals, Squeaky the Squirrel's Picnic, Inclusive Ninja, You Have to Stay Home, Did You Know?, Bed Bugs & Monster Hugs, Eddie the World's Greatest Creature, How Angels are Made, and Free to be Me. Enjoy the slideshow!