Hit the Road

By Caroline B. Cooney

Book Overview

Brit has had her driver's license only 11 days when her parents drop her off to stay at her grandmother's house for two weeks while they go on vacation. Little do they know Brit is headed for a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385729448
• ISBN13: 9780385729444
• Release Date: May 2006
• Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
• Length: 183 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 0.8" x 5.8"
• Age Range: 12 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 7 and higher

Customer Reviews

Entertaining tale about the search for independence

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.

BUCKLE UP FOR A FAST-PACED READ!

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

She'll Be Coming Round The Mountain...

Caroline B. Cooney's latest novel, HIT THE ROAD, is without a doubt one of the funniest books I've ever read. Britanny is in for quite a surprise when she arrives at her grandmother's house to 'babysit' her while her parents are on an Alaskan vacation. You see, Nannie has plans of her own--none of which includes staying home and watching tv--so Brit, relunctantly at first, joins her schemes little knowing how those adventures would change her life. The plan? To pick up her former college roomates Flo, Aurelia, and Daisy and head to their 65th college reunion in Maine. The problem? All of these ladies have been told by their adult children that they are NOT going to be allowed to go because they are too sick, too old, or too senile. In fact, Aurelia is in a facility for Alzheimer's under constant guard. The solution? Using a rental car, and a newly licensed 16 year old...drive across New England, pick up Flo, and kidnap Aurelia, etc. But Plan A is always being revised...you see it's not easy for Brit to follow the plan when her Nannie can't remember which town, which street, or even the last name of her best friend, Flo. What happens along the way is both hilarious and bittersweet, as Brit gets to know these "girls" she learns some life lessons of her own. Full of humor, action, adventure...HIT THE ROAD is an amazing novel.

Courtesy of Teens Read Too

If you want to read one of the most hilarious books of the summer, then you definitely need to pick up a copy of HIT THE ROAD by Caroline B. Cooney. I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard, or so often, while reading a book. If you've always believed that people over the age of eighty are nothing but dried up old husks of their former selves, then you need to meet the Buttermeres: Nannie Rawlings, Florence Mirsky, Aurelia Alan, and Daisy Ferrer. And the girl destined to either make an entire carload of new friends, or go crazy in the process, Brittany Anne Bowman. Forced into her grandmother's care for two weeks while her parents cruise around Alaska, neither Brit nor Nannie particularly want to be babysat. After her own daughter cut her driver's license in half, took away her car, and left her to gather dust, Nannie Rawlings isn't in the best of moods. She's already missed out on last year's Reunion with her three best friends, but this year is number sixty-five, and she has no intention of not attending. So she gets a new license (through less than noble means), rents a car, and sets off with her granddaughter to pick up her friends. Brit soon realizes that if she wants to make it to the Reunion alive and in one piece, she's going to have to be the driver/chaueffer. Which isn't that bad except for situations like this: "Nannie!" she yelled. "Read the signs! Tell me what to do! Do we want the Cross Island Parkway? Two-ninety-five? Four-ninety-five? The Van Wyck? The L.I.E.? The Long Island Expressway?" "Those two are the same road." "But do we want them?" Brit shrieked. Thus begins a road trip that no one involved is likely to ever forget. Between convincing her parents via cell phone that they're at Nannie's house watching loud television, and convincing the "girls" that no one at the nursing home will realize they're gone, to avoiding the ruthless, money-hungry son of one of their own, HIT THE ROAD is a laugh-out-loud, nonstop story that will have you turning pages long into the night. A winning read that is as emotional as it is funny, Ms. Cooney has penned a definite winner.

Richie's Picks: HIT THE ROAD

"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