The Runaway Road
by Stan Mack
Parents Magazine Book Club
1980
When I was a kid, my parents had a subscription to the Parents Magazine Book Club. By the time my sister and I were too old for them, we'd built up quite a collection. I didn't keep most of them, and recently, when I was going through a box of kids' books I'd kept, my goal was to pare down further. But The Runaway Road by Stan Mack is still kind of nice, so I'm still keeping it.
Every year, the family goes on their two-week summer vacation to the mountains, taking good old Route 100. It's a sign of the times, I guess, that this seems like absurd luxury to me, but was probably meant to be unremarkable and relatable to the typical PMBC subscriber.
Anyway, this year, the road itself seems to have other ideas, and goes on a detour, taking the family in their car along for the ride. What follows is what I've come to recognize as a typical children's book plot structure. As the road scoots along its way, it crosses paths with various people who get caught up in things and have to follow along to the destination - a woman whose line-drying laundry gets caught on the family station wagon, a farmer whose pig stands on the hood, a hotdog seller who needs to get paid for lunch, police who want to know what all the fuss is about.
Eventually, the road gets where it's going - the beach! The end of the road enjoys feeling the lapping of the waves. Everyone gets their stuff back, and the family decides to go ahead and vacation at the beach instead. Apparently, Route 100 will do this for two weeks a year from now on, but still go up to the mountains the rest of the time.
It's not some deep or profound story, but it's one of the few Parents Magazine books I could've described for you, even before rereading it.
Every year, the family goes on their two-week summer vacation to the mountains, taking good old Route 100. It's a sign of the times, I guess, that this seems like absurd luxury to me, but was probably meant to be unremarkable and relatable to the typical PMBC subscriber.
Anyway, this year, the road itself seems to have other ideas, and goes on a detour, taking the family in their car along for the ride. What follows is what I've come to recognize as a typical children's book plot structure. As the road scoots along its way, it crosses paths with various people who get caught up in things and have to follow along to the destination - a woman whose line-drying laundry gets caught on the family station wagon, a farmer whose pig stands on the hood, a hotdog seller who needs to get paid for lunch, police who want to know what all the fuss is about.
Eventually, the road gets where it's going - the beach! The end of the road enjoys feeling the lapping of the waves. Everyone gets their stuff back, and the family decides to go ahead and vacation at the beach instead. Apparently, Route 100 will do this for two weeks a year from now on, but still go up to the mountains the rest of the time.
It's not some deep or profound story, but it's one of the few Parents Magazine books I could've described for you, even before rereading it.
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