Alice Ramsey's Grand Adventure

The travel bug knows no limits of age or gender, and neither should travel literature. In Alice Ramsey's Grand Adventure, writer and illustrator Don Brown tells the story of an intrepid young woman and her 59-day drive across America in 1909. As Brown soon makes clear, Alice Ramsey's journey was no mean feat--for one thing, the roads were poor, there were no road signs, and there was only one guidebook for motorists--the Blue Book, which contained directions such as "Turn left at the red barn with the yellow silo..." Excellent directions as long as the farmer hadn't repainted the silo blue.

Accompanied by her friend Hermine and her two sisters-in-law, Alice Ramsey made her way west, fording flooding streams and muddy roads and facing mechanical failures, terrible weather, and other obstacles both natural and manmade until at last she entered San Francisco to a grand parade. Alice Ramsey's Grand Adventurehas drama, humor, suspense--in short, all the qualities one looks for in travel literature--and charming illustrations as well, guaranteed to appeal to young travelers-in-the-making.