So Book

Somehow, every summer, our family ends up going on monster car trips across the US. Usually, these car trips start with a business trip that the family gets to tag along on. Then  we start thinking…as long as we are going to Texas, we should bop on over to Arizona to visit the in-laws. (Note: Only fools put ‘Texas’ and ‘bop on over’ in the same sentence). And of course, it’s not really out of the way to stop in Denver on the way home to visit the brother…

So we pile the cooler, swim gear, suitcases and 6 children into the car, and off we go. How do we keep from going crazy after all day in the car together? Well, we don’t really, but books do keep help keep the children distracted and thinking constructively for large parts of the trip!

Before every trip I look for books on ebay, in used bookstores, thrift stores, and at bookcloseouts.com. I try to pick books that are interactive, or light reading. Some of our family’s favorites are:

• The Geronimo Stilton series
• Animorphs
• Where’s Waldo
• The Puzzle Series from Usborne books (Puzzle Castle, Puzzle Jungle, etc.)
• Choose your own adventure books
• Mad Libs
• Sticker books

The trick is to not let the children see any of the books before the trip. You can live without the ‘discussions’ among children on whether the Superman sticker book or Puzzle Earth should be the next book.

I try to wrap each seperately before the trip, and the children take turns opening one or two every morning. If I run out time and don’t get the books wrapped, then they go in a big duffel bag for me to dole out at the proper moment.

If you do go on over to BookCloseouts.com to see what they’ve got that might fascinate your child, be sure to check out the coupons at Book Closeouts Steals and Deals to save even more.

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