Why Aren T We There Yet

"This book focuses on guiding individuals and groups through learning how to have difficult conversations that lead us to act to create more just campuses. It advocates for engaging in fruitful dialogues regarding differing social identities--including race, ethnicity, religion, gender, and sexual orientation--to lead readers through a process that advocates for justice, and for taking personal responsibility for contributing to the solution"--Book cover.

Caldecott Medalist Dan Santat--creator of The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend and After the Fall--takes readers on the road trip of a lifetime! "Are we there yet?" Every parent has heard this classic kid question on a long car ride--and after reading this astonishingly inventive new book (that even turns upside down for several pages!), you'll never look at being bored the same way again. Let's face it: everyone knows that car rides can be boring. And when things get boring, time slows down. In this book, a boy feels time slowing down so much that it starts going backward--into the time of pirates! Of princesses! Of dinosaurs! The boy was just trying to get to his grandmother's birthday party, but instead he's traveling through Ancient Egypt and rubbing shoulders with Ben Franklin. When time flies, who knows where--or when--he'll end up.

Take a trip to Italy in this “introspective, moving, and honest” (Publishers Weekly) novel by bestselling author David Levithan (Every Day; Will Grayson, Will Grayson with John Green) in which fledgling family bonds are threatened by new love. Sixteen-year-old Elijah is completely mellow and his 23-year-old brother Danny is completely not, so it's no wonder they can barely tolerate one another. So what better way to repair their broken relationship than to trick them into taking a trip to Italy together? Soon, though, their parents' perfect solution has become Danny and Elijah's nightmare as they're forced to spend countless hours together. But then Elijah meets Julia, and soon the brothers aren't together nearly as much. And when Julia suddenly decides that maybe it's Danny she's really interested in, Danny has a decision to make: does he honor his relationship with the brother he thinks hates him, or does he follow his heart, which sorely needs some repairing of its own?Elijah and Danny don’t think they have anything in common except their parents. Danny thinks Elijah is a lazy, slacking, clueless dreamer who doesn’t know how to make a living. Elijah thinks Danny is a workaholic, stuck-up, soulless drone who doesn’t know how to make a life. Yes, they’re brothers. Then their parents trick them into taking a trip to Italy together. Nine days of escape. Nine days of somewhere else. Elijah and Danny aren’t sure it’s going to work. Until they each meet a girl—the same girl. Julia. And nothing will ever be the same again. AN ALA BEST BOOK FOR YOUNG ADULTS

"A breezy yet affecting read filled with struggle and hope."—People A Good Day LA Pick Among fake Instagram pages, long-buried family secrets, and the horrors of middle school, one suburban mom searches to find herself. Alice Sullivan feels like she’s finally found her groove in middle age, but it only takes one moment for her perfectly curated life to unravel. On the same day she learns her daughter is struggling in second grade, a call from her son’s school accusing him of bullying throws Alice into a tailspin. When it comes to light that the incident is part of a new behavior pattern for her son, one complete with fake social media profiles with a lot of questionable content, Alice’s social standing is quickly eroded to one of “those moms” who can’t control her kids. Soon she’s facing the very judgement she was all too happy to dole out when she thought no one was looking (or when she thought her house wasn’t made of glass). Then her mother unloads a family secret she’s kept for more than thirty years, and Alice’s entire perception of herself is shattered. As her son’s new reputation polarizes her friendships and her family buzzes with the ramification of her mother’s choices, Alice realizes that she’s been too focused on measuring her success and happiness by everyone else's standards. Now, with all her shortcomings laid bare, she’ll have to figure out to whom to turn for help and decide who she really wants to be.

A brother and sister are very impatient during a car trip because they are going to a toy store.

Co-published with Despite seeming endless debate and public attention given to the issue for several decades, those committed to creating welcoming and engaging campus environments for all students recognize that there is considerably more work to be done, and ask “Why aren’t we there yet, and when will we be done?” While our campuses have evolved from being exclusionary and intolerant, and publicly espouse the objectives of being welcoming, accepting, affirming, and engaging, the data on admissions, retention, and graduation clearly indicate that these goals have not been achieved.The contributors to this book seek to offer new insights to improve student affairs, emphasizing action that recognizes this is a complex and multi-faceted process, and beginning with the assertion that, without recognizing the influences of privilege and inequality, we educators cannot promote truly welcoming environments. This book focuses on guiding individuals and groups through learning how to have difficult conversations that lead us to act to create more just campuses, and provides illustrations of multiple ways to respond to difficult situations. It advocates for engaging in fruitful dialogues regarding differing social identities including race, ethnicity, religion, gender, and sexual orientation, to lead readers through a process that advocates for justice, and for taking personal responsibility for contributing to the solution. The book is framed around the five elements of the process of engaging in difficult conversations that not only advocate for change but also create change: self knowledge, knowledge of and experiences with others, understanding historical and institutional contexts, understanding how to change the status quo, and transformative action.

Tech giants and automakers have been teaching robots to drive. Robot-controlled cars have already logged millions of miles. These technological marvels promise cleaner air, smoother traffic, and tens of thousands of lives saved. But even if robots turn into responsible drivers, are we ready to be a nation of passengers? In Are We There Yet?, Dan Albert combines historical scholarship with personal narrative to explore how car culture has suffused America’s DNA. The plain, old-fashioned, human-driven car built our economy, won our wars, and shaped our democratic creed as it moved us about. Driver’s ed made teenagers into citizens; auto repair made boys into men. Crusades against the automobile are nothing new. Its arrival sparked battles over street space, pitting the masses against the millionaires who terrorized pedestrians. When the masses got cars of their own, they learned to love driving too. During World War II, Washington nationalized Detroit and postwar Americans embraced car and country as if they were one. Then came 1960s environmentalism and the energy crises of the 1970s. Many predicted, even welcomed, the death of the automobile. But many more rose to its defense. They embraced trucker culture and took to Citizen Band radios, demanding enough gas to keep their big boats afloat. Since the 1980s, the car culture has triumphed and we now drive more miles than ever before. Have we reached the end of the road this time? Fewer young people are learning to drive. Ride hailing is replacing car buying, and with electrification a long and noble tradition of amateur car repair—to say nothing of the visceral sound of gasoline exploding inside a big V8—will come to an end. When a robot takes over the driver’s seat, what’s to become of us? Are We There Yet? carries us from muddy tracks to superhighways, from horseless buggies to driverless electric vehicles. Like any good road trip, it’s an adventure so fun you don’t even notice how much you’ve learned along the way.

When Bigfoot is driving the bus, a field trip can feel legendarily long…but the best surprise of all is yeti to come! When Yeti, the school bus driver, takes the class on a surprise trip, everyone wants to know: “Are we there, Yeti?” And when they finally arrive, a new adventure is in store! Told with simple text and delightful illustrations, Ashlyn Anstee’s debut picture book presents a fun, new take on a timeless question.