Parents' Guide to

The Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle

By Jan Carr, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 8+

Girl bikes across the U.S. in quirky road-trip adventure.

The Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this book.

Community Reviews

age 9+

Based on 1 parent review

age 9+

5/5 Had to Buy It!!

This book is quirky and absolutely fantastic and I was completely engaged the entire time. I'm a librarian and so I read it because it's a bluebonnet book for last year. I immediately recommended it to everyone I possibly could. I also loved it so much, I bought it! It's got a perfect amount of realistic and unrealistic events.

This title has:

Educational value
Great messages
Great role models

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: (1 ):
Kids say: Not yet rated

This offbeat road-trip story, in which a 12-year-old girl bikes solo cross-country, is enlivened by the eccentric characters she meets along the way, as well as the majesty of the U.S. landscape. The Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle draws on author Christina Uss' own experience with long-distance bike trips, and the story's infused with her love of cycling, sweetening the ride.

Uss has a broad, breezy, folksy style, exaggerating for comic effect. For instance, Bicycle meets French Chef Marie, who's come to America to open a vast chain of locavore cafes that conveniently dot Bicycle's route, providing unending eats. And, in a town where there's an annual pig parade, she eats fried pies with fillings like kielbasa-'n'-mustard and peanut butter-and-sorghum. The characters and situations are often improbable, and some readers will love that and giggle along, while others might prefer to be grounded in a more realistic story. But all readers will root for Bicycle, an endearingly determined protagonist, and will have fun traveling with her from the Civil War battlefield sites of Virginia to the Bicycle Blessing ceremony in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

Book Details

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