Ride Beside Me

by Lucy Knisley

Overview

A mother and son hop on their bike for a ride through the neighborhood, joining friends and neighbors along the way.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781984897206
Publisher:	Random House Children's Books
Publication date:	02/20/2024
Pages:	40
Product dimensions:	11.38(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.36(d)
Age Range:	3 - 6 Years

About the Author

Lucy Knisley is the critically acclaimed, award-winning, New York Times bestselling comics creator of Stepping Stones, Apple Crush, Relish and Kid Gloves. She lives in Chicago with her husband and son. She specializes in personal, confessional graphic novels and illustration. Find her online at @lucyknisley.

Editorial Reviews

11/06/2023

“My helmet is on, and/ the morning is bright”—and it seems like everybody the child narrator knows is riding some kind of cycle in this on-the-move chronicle of a largely self-propelled public. Setting out with Mom pedaling, a child in a bike seat notices a neighbor on a tall cycle and a mail carrier on a recumbent number. A pal waves from a bike pulled by a crowded tandem bicycle (“There’s Petunia, my classmate. She’s one kid of four./ They all ride the same bike, and there’s room for one more”). As a variety of cycles take to the streets, ridden by individuals of various skin tones, text lightly thumbs its nose at various internal combustion vehicles and their rather grim drivers (“I bet they wish they/ could be going this fast!”). Throughout, flat, bright gouache illustrations by Knisley (You Are New) largely focus on the growing, zooming group, conveying a sense of community and civic unanimity shown through handlebars, pedals, and wheels. “It’s like we’re a club,/ or a party... a sea!” says the exhilarated narrator, “an ocean of bicycles,/ all around me.” Ages 3–6. Agent: Holly Bemiss, Susan Rabiner Literary. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

"A charming picture book inspired by motherhood and cycling.” —Block Club Chiacgo

"As pleasant and breezy as a bike ride." —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2023-11-18
A mother and child bike with a community of fellow riders.

As they set off for their morning ride, both are equipped with helmets and snacks, ready for an adventure through their town. Along the way, they meet up with neighbors and community members on different types of bicycles, from an extra-tall ride to a recumbent bike. The rhyming text is narrated by the child, who rides on a special seat on the front of Mom’s bike. The book’s title page includes a small flyer announcing “Group Ride, Saturday 9-5, up the hill and back down!” though the text doesn’t make explicit mention of this group ride. As the pair pedal through town, they join forces with a slowly building wave of riders who move together safely. The young narrator comments how fresh the air smells when the road is empty of cars, a nod to the positive environmental impact of biking. With their bright, flat colors, the charming illustrations depict riders of various ages, skin colors, and sizes, and the endpapers are packed with examples of bicycles and riders. The child and mother are light-skinned. Upbeat verse highlights the benefits and joys of biking, and though it’s clear that cycling is a more environmentally friendly transportation option compared with driving, the book never verges on didacticism.

As pleasant and breezy as a bike ride. (Picture book. 3-5)

Kirkus Reviews