HIT THE ROAD by Caroline B. Cooney
    Category:  Contemporary
    Age Recommendation:  Grades 6+
    Release Date:  5/9/06
    Publisher:  Delacorte
    Reviewed by:  Jennifer Wardrip, aka "The Genius"
    Rating:  5 Stars


    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.
Hit the Road
by Caroline B. Cooney