Margins
Big Rig book cover
Big Rig
2022
First Published
3.67
Average Rating
272
Number of Pages

Hitch a ride with 11-year-old Hazmat and her dad in their 18-wheeler, Leonardo, for a feel-good road trip across America that keeps on trucking! Life on the road with Daddy is as good as gets for Hazmat. Together, they’ve been taking jobs and crisscrossing the US for years. Now Daddy’s talking about putting down roots—somewhere Hazmat can go to a real school and make friends. Somewhere Daddy doesn’t have to mail-order textbooks about “nature’s promise to all women.” Somewhere Mom’s ashes can rest on a mantel and not on a dashboard. While everything just keeps changing, sometimes in ways she can’t control, Hazmat isn’t ready to give up the freedom of long-distance hauling. Sure the road is filled with surprises, from plane crashes and robo trucks to runaway hitchhikers and abandoned babies, but that all makes for great stories! So Hazmat hatches a plan to make sure Daddy’s dream never becomes a reality. Because there’s only one place Hazmat belongs: in the navigator’s seat, right next to Daddy, with the whole country flying by and each day different from the last. Award-winning author Louise Hawes writes with an easy, conversational voice and an “I’ll never grow up” spirit that cheerfully thumbs its nose at traditional coming-of-age narratives. This heart-tugging, laugh-out-loud portrait of a father and daughter is a satisfying journey across modern America you won’t want to miss.

Avg Rating
3.67
Number of Ratings
187
5 STARS
20%
4 STARS
36%
3 STARS
36%
2 STARS
5%
1 STARS
2%
goodreads

Author

Louise Hawes
Author · 8 books

I live in North Carolina, where time moves more slowly than it did in New York. That means my day can include writing, working with new writers, yoga, and hanging OUT with my sweet teacher, Mother Nature. I have two grown children, both teachers. They are, deliciously and, to me always surprisingly, among my two best friends on the planet. I'm a teacher as well as an author, serving proudly on the faculty at Vermont College of Fine Arts in the MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults Program, and at Mainely Writing, an intensive week-long writing retreat on the coast of you know which beautiful New England state. What's new? A collaborative graphic novel, A FLIGHT OF ANGELS, comes out from Vertigo/DC Comics in November!

548 Market St PMB 65688, San Francisco California 94104-5401 USA
© 2025 Paratext Inc. All rights reserved