The Ride Home

Mark is a city kid who has come to a small town to live with his grandmother after his mom goes into rehab.

Mark has to take a school bus home for the first time. The long, noisy ride home is nothing like riding city transit. There’s some kind of secret code of knowing where you’re allowed to sit, the kids scream nonstop and someone even tries to set Mark’s seat on fire. He quickly decides that all these kids are too strange and does his best to avoid them. But when tragedy strikes, Mark learns that he has more in common with these country kids than he had ever imagined.

This short novel is a high-interest, low-reading level book for middle-grade readers who are building reading skills, want a quick read or say they don’t like to read! The epub edition of this title is fully accessible. Available in French as L’autobus infernal.

Gail Anderson-Dargatz is the award-winning author of over a twenty books, including The Cure for Death by Lightning and A Recipe for Bees, which were finalists for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. She has also written a number of short novels for striving readers, including the Orca Anchor title My Life Off-Key, Orca Currents titles Bigfoot Crossing and Iggy’s World, both JLG Gold Standard Selections and The Ride Home, which was shortlisted for a BC and Yukon Book Prize. Gail taught for nearly a decade in the CW MFA program at UBC and now works as an editor and mentor. She lives in the Shuswap region of British Columbia.

• BC and Yukon Book Prizes - Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature PrizeShort-listed 2021
• Chocolate Lily AwardsShort-listed 2022

“Delightfully poignant...Will hook all middle school readers into [the] story with language they will understand and find amusing.”

Gail Anderson-Dargatz is the award-winning author of over a dozen books, including The Cure for Death by Lightning and A Recipe for Bees, which were finalists for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. She has also written a number of short novels for striving readers, including the Orca Currents titles Bigfoot Crossing, Iggy’s World and The Ride Home, which was shortlisted for a BC and Yukon Book Prize. Gail lives in the Shuswap region of British Columbia.