Here's nonfiction!

From YALSA:

Quickpicks for reluctant young readers -

Wong, Janet S. Behind the Wheel: Poems about Driving. Simon & Schuster/Margaret K. McElderry, $16 (0-689-82531-5).

2002 Editor's choice books:

Bradsher, Keith. High and Mighty: SUVs--the World's Most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got That Way. Public Affairs, $28 (1-58648-123-1).

The excitement for drivers, the danger for the environment: both are of passionate interest to teens, and Bradsher explores the facts and the issues with depth and insight.

Non-fiction or fiction??

On the road

Author: Kerouac, Jack, 1922-1969

On the Road is a thinly fictionalized autobiography, filled with a cast made of Kerouac's real life friends, lover, and fellow travelers. Narrated by Sal Paradise, one of Kerouac's alter-egos, On the Road is a cross-country bohemian odyssey that not only influenced writing in the years since its 1957 publication but penetrated into the deepest level of American thought and culture.

Buccaneer Books, copyright 1975, 310 p.

From Children's literature database:

• Road fever : a high-speed travelogue Author:Tim Cahill.

New York : Vintage Books, 1992 278p.

The Guinness Book of World Records notes the event this way: "Longest drive south to north: Garry Sowerby and Tim Cahill drove this car from the southern tip of South America to the northern edge of Alaska (with one detour by water) in less than twenty-four days, Sept. 29 to Oct. 22, 1987." To be more exact, from the very last road sign on the very last road at the absolute bottom of the South American continent (which is at Ushuaia, Argentina, in case you are interested), Sowerby and Cahill drove a stock GMC Sierra four-wheel drive vehicle loaded with beef jerky and strawberry milkshakes north to the end of the road at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, in 23 days, 22 hours, and 43 minutes. Undeterred by engine trouble, cold-blooded Peruvian troopers, inclement weather, maniacal drivers, pitted roads, and mountains of border-crossing paperwork, the two intrepid adventurers covered about 15,000 miles. Cahill recorded the trip in the crazed style he used in previous books like A Wolverine is Eating My Leg and Jaguars Ripped My Flesh. Highly recommended for humor, high jinks, and history. KLIATT Codes: JSA*--Exceptional book, recommended for junior and senior high school students, advanced students, and adults

• A journey to Ohio in 1810 : as recorded in the journal of Margaret Van Horn Dwight

Joan McGrath (KLIATT Review, February 1992 (Vol. 26, No. 2))

Books, movies and television bristle with images of stiff-upper-lip pioneers who settled a wilderness, but that was not the whole story. Here is the diary of a young, unmarried woman who made the difficult journey from civilized New Haven, Connecticut, to frontier town Warren, Ohio, complaining (to her journal at least) every step of the way. Dwight had in truth a great deal to complain about; roads that were a travesty; the terrible weather; horrible wayside inns that were chosen for cheapness rather than cleanliness or comfort, and filled with crowds of drunken Dutchmen (to use her generic term); and the general unhappy uncertainty of the trip. Her tale of woe is, however, lightened by a biting and irrepressible wit. She sent her travel diary section by section to her cousin Elizabeth, safe at home in New Haven, instructing her that she should "let no one see this but you and your own family." Happily this postscript was disobeyed by later generations. Across the years a proud, impatient, witty and generally likable person emerges, in this first-hand woman's-eye view of an exciting era of American history.

Road Trip America: A State-by-State Tour Guide to Offbeat Destinations

Andrew Wood, Collector's Press Incorporated, 2006

Ramble along America's highways and byways with ROAD TRIP AMERICA, a tour of our nation's long-loved roadside attractions and oddities. Featuring the coolest and weirdest destinations of yesterday and today, this handy guide provides cover-to-cover entertainment for both armchair and on-the-road travelers.

Road Trip USA: Cross-Country Adventures on America's Two-Lane Highways

Jamie Jensen, Emeryville, Calif. : Avalon Travel, 2002.

Now in its 10th anniversary edition, the best-selling Road Trip USA is better than ever. Inside you’ll find cross-country routes and road-tested advice for adventurers who want to see part of America that the interstates have left behind. Mile-by-mile highlights celebrate major cities, obscure towns, popular attractions, roadside curiosities (if you’re looking for the world’s largest jackalope, you’re in luck), local lore, and oddball trivia. Exit the interstates and create your own driving adventures on America's two-land scenic highways. Features include: a flexible network of route combinations, extensively cross-referenced to allow for hundreds of possible itineraries; essential tips for the road: call letters of lively radio stations, Survival Guides for two dozen cities, and details on where to eat and sleep; and more than 125 detailed maps.

Rand McNally 2006 U.S. Canada Mexico Road Atlas

With more than 2,000 updates for 2006 — including new highway numbers, exits, and road construction projects — you can count on America's #1 road atlas for reliable pre-trip planning and on-the-road navigation.

Features include:Detailed inset maps of more than 300 cities and 20 U.S. National Parks

Annual Rand McNally "Best of the Road™" editorial feature-five new road trips with recommended stops for dining, shopping, sightseeing, and entertainment

"50 Years of Interstates" — features Intersate system history and trivia, plus 50 adventures

Toll-free numbers and websites for major national hotel and car rental chains

Individual road maps, road construction and condition hotline info, and complete list of tourism contacts of every U.S. state and Canadian province

One-page overview of Mexico

Chart with over 5,400 mileages and a mileage and driving times map

Express Access Codes-located throughout the atlas, they offer quick access to detailed information on points of interest, attractions, weather, mileages, and more at randmcnally.com

Oddball Illinois: A Guide to Some Really Strange Places by Jerome Pohlen, Chicago Review Press.

Giant fiberglass wieners atop a hotdog stand. Wild green parrots that live in the city. A double-decker outhouse. A museum dedicated to surgical science. Statues that weep. Find out where these and other eclectic sites are located in Oddball Illinois, an offbeat travel guide that’s a mix of Fodors and News of the Weird. There is more between Chicago and St. Louis than cornfields, and plenty of fascinating places in the Windy City that aren’t on Michigan Avenue. Oddball Illinois won’t point out the hottest club in Chicago, the quaintest small-town bed & breakfast, nor the most scenic hiking trail in Illinois. This book will, however, tell about the locations of America’s One and Only Hippie Memorial, Scarlett O’Hara’s green drapes, Popeye’s Hometown, and several places the local Chambers of Commerce would just as soon be forgotten. Behind all the odd sights is some wonderfully interesting history and a chance to see some underappreciated sites throughout the state.

Other books in the Oddball Travel Series: Oddball Florida, Oddball Colorado, Oddball Indiana Oddball Iowa, Oddball Minnesota, Oddball Ohio, Oddball Texas, and Oddball Wisconsin

Hit the road with Lonely Planet’s new Road Trip series! These indispensable guides combine four-colour laminated foldout maps with snappy coverage of must-see attractions, worthwhile detours and the best places to sleep and eat on the road.

http://shop.lonelyplanet.com/series_products.cfm?seriesID=41&seriesname=Road%20Trips

Drive Thru America, Sean Condon, 1998

Beware, beware: pop culture junkie Sean Condon is on the road again. From New York to San Francisco, Sean investigates the legendary people, places and TV programs that sustained him through his difficult pre-pubescent years. Can he survive the channel-switching, the miles of highway, the country & western radio, the all-you-can-eat fast-food bargains? In Drive thru America Sean Condon behaves unwisely, risks several ironic remarks...and provides a shrewd and very funny take on life in the United States. The road book that makes you glad you stayed at home.

Explore Lonely Planet’s guide books on cities and states throughout the U.S.

http://shop.lonelyplanet.com/country_products.cfm?countryID=8&country=USA&rgnID=7&rgn=North%20America&pagetitle=USA&

Weird U.S.: Your Travel Guide to America's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets, Moran, Mark, Barnes and Noble Books, 2004.

Library Journal

There's something deliciously demented about two young men who wander the country in search of the bizarre, unexplained, or just plain nutty. Having had success, and plenty of reader response, with their magazine, Weird NJ, in which they documented New Jersey's less celebrated tourist attractions, they felt compelled to expand their research to encompass this entire land of Melon Heads, Phantom Clowns, Foulke Monsters, Prairie Moon Gardens, and Slimy Slim. Chapters are divided into enticing sections-"Fabled People and Places," "Bizarre Beasts," "Gateways to Hell," and "Cemetery Safari," among others-and are remarkably detailed, listing confirmed accounts of the events that have colored the countryside. A more valuable resource than similar titles such as New Roadside America and America Bizarro, which touch only briefly on the freaky attractions, Weird U.S. is a marvelous work of entertainment and the basis for a truly unique vacation. It deserves a prominent place in all public libraries.-Joseph Carlson, Lompoc, CA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Other books in the Weird U.S. series include: Weird Illinois Weird Pennsylvania, Weird Texas, Weird New England, Weird N.J., Weird Ohio, Weird California, Weird Georgia, and Weird Wisconsin.

The Ultimate Baseball Road-Trip: A Fan's Guide to Major League Stadiums, Joshua Pahigian, Kevin O'Connell, The Lyons Press, 2004.

Part travel manual, part ballpark atlas, part baseball history book, part restaurant and city guide, and, not least, part epic narrative, The Ultimate Baseball Road-Trip encompasses all the essential elements of a full-blown baseball road-trip. Included are ticket and travel information, a detailed guide to the best and worst seats in each park, folklore and statistics on each park, tips on each park's trademark foods, and profiles of nearby sports bars and baseball attractions, all within a lively narrative that reminds us that baseball is often the ultimate metaphor for the important things in life.

Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer, Random House Inc., 1997.

In April 1992, a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. He had given $25,000 in savings to a charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet and invented a life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. Jon Krakauer brings Chris McCandless's uncompromising pilgrimage out of the shadows and illuminates it with meaning in this mesmerizing and heartbreaking tour de force (from the publisher).

Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip, Dayton Duncan, Random House, NY, 2003.

In 1903 there were only 150 miles of paved roads in the entire nation and most people had never seen a "horseless buggy" - but that did not stop Horatio Nelson Jackson, a thirty-one-year-old Vermont doctor, who impulsively bet fifty dollars that he could drive his 20-horsepower automobile from San Francisco to New York City. Here - in Jackson's own words and photographs - is a glorious account of that months-long, problem-beset, thrilling-to-the-rattled-bones trip with his mechanic, Sewall Crocker, and a bulldog named Bud.

Online guide to offbeat tourist attractions across the fifty states

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/