3 kids + 1 good book = great road trip

For this family, choosing a book to read aloud in the car is essential.

from the March 3, 2008 edition

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When we returned home, I asked my son what he liked about the trip. He answered without hesitation, "The book you read in the car."

Reading chapter books in the car is like quizzing a child on spelling words while she soaks in the bathtub. The audience is captive. They can't wander off or flip on the television as they would at home. Instead, they listen and gaze out the car windows until their imaginations take over. They see Harry Potter's magical world without special effects. They look at action figures differently after listening to "The Indian in the Cupboard" by Lynne Reid Banks, the story of a feisty toy Indian that comes to life.

A fringe benefit? At young ages they learned what every reader knows: The book is always better than the movie.

Road trips still offer challenges, even though my children now are teenagers. My son flings an arm across the imaginary line that defines my daughter's space. One teen likes to whistle, the other two dislike the sound of whistling. By the end of a trip, our car is like a moving bird feeder, filled with crumbs and sticky messes.

But we continue to read as we roll across the country. And I'm beginning to see that reading aloud has done more than help pass the time. For at least a little while, we are not isolated in our own electronic worlds. We laughed together at a gawky boy's antics in Robert McCloskey's "Homer Price." We knew Sterling North's pet raccoon belonged to the wild in "Rascal." But we still cried at the end.

And maybe we've started something that will pass on to the next generation.

I followed my son's car last fall as he drove to college to begin his freshman year. When it was time to say goodbye, he handed me a tape and asked, "Will you return this to the library for me?"

He had been listening to "James and the Giant Peach," the book that started our tradition years ago.

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