Ride Beside Me

by Lucy Knisley (Author)

Reading Level: K − 1st Grade

The community that rides together, thrives together! New York Times bestselling comic creator Lucy Knisley celebrates the joys of biking in this picture book about coming together to build safer streets and a brighter future for all.

A mother and son hop on their bike for a ride through the neighborhood, joining friends and neighbors along the way. There are people on unicycles and tandem bikes, tricycles and recumbents--all kinds of bikes for all kinds of riders.

Before long, the bikes outnumber the cars and trucks, taking up more and more of the road until they form a parade of sorts, smiling and popping wheelies, ringing their bells, and celebrating the beautiful community they all share.

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Hardcover
$18.99

Kirkus

As pleasant and breezy as a bike ride.

Publishers Weekly

"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.)

Copyright 2023 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

Review quotes




Lucy Knisley
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.
Classification
Fiction
ISBN-13
9781984897190
Lexile Measure
500
Guided Reading Level
-
Publisher
Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers
Publication date
February 20, 2024
Series
-
BISAC categories
JUV041000 - Juvenile Fiction | Transportation | General
JUV032180 - Juvenile Fiction | Sports & Recreation | Cycling
JUV063000 - Juvenile Fiction | Recycling & Green Living
Library of Congress categories
Picture books
Stories in rhyme
Mothers and sons
Bicycles and bicycling
Neighborhoods

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