Cars!
“I know a lot about cars, man. I can look at any car’s headlights and tell you exactly which way it’s coming.” —Mitch Hedberg
I’m the farthest thing from a gearhead you’ll ever meet (although I do enjoy a vintage episode of Top Gear from time to time), and while my kids enjoy playing with toy cars (and messing around in my actual car), they aren’t auto-obsessed. That said, whether or not your child is a car fanatic, this guide has something for everyone, starting with a book list that should be a relief for any grown up who is bored to tears having read the same car or truck book for the six millionth time.
What you’ll find in the Cars guide:
Car Books to Read Together (that maybe you haven’t read before)
Snack Time: Mini Munch Mobiles
Invitation to Play: Make a Race Track
Invitation to Play: At the Car Wash
Plus poems, trying to make car sounds, a scavenger hunt and more… Print out the guide and get revved up to play!
Guides are available to all subscribers for 1 month after they come out, and then they’ll go into the archive which is available to paid subscribers.
10 car books to read with your kids.
What Kind of Car Does a T.Rex Drive? by Mark Lee, illustrated by Brian Biggs
All the Way to Havana by Margarita Engle, illustrated by Mike Curato
The Racecar Alphabet by Brian Floca
All Kinds of Cars by Carl Johanson
Bing! Bang! Chugga! Beep! by Bill Martin Jr. and Michael Sampson, illustrated by Nathalie Beauvois
Vroom! by Barbara McClintock
The Old Truck by Jarrett Pumphrey and Jerome Pumphrey
Rattletrap Car by Phyllis Root, illustrated by Jill Barton
Gus’s Garage by Leo Timmers
If I Built a Car by Chris Van Dusen
Are any of these books new to you? I hope that if you’ve read a zillion car books, one of these will be a new favorite. And if your child hasn’t fallen in love with cars yet, maybe they’ll fall in love with one of these books!
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3 cool car videos to watch with your kids.
🚗 Micromachines (by Nicolas Ménard, 2 minutes)
🚙 What Happens During a NASCAR Pit Stop? (NBC Sports, 2 minutes)
🚕 A Visit to a Car Show (Mister Rogers, 7 minutes, begins at minute mark 17:50)
That is so interesting!
➵ Watch: Teen Girl Rebuilds Car from Scratch (THNKR) “At age 12, Kathryn convinced her parents to let her buy and begin restoring a 1986 Pontiac Fiero with $450 in babysitting money. Over the past two years, she has painstakingly restored every part of her Fiero by hand, quickly learning advanced mechanical skills such as welding, grinding, upholstering, sandblasting—even how to rebuild an engine.”
➵ Watch: Auto sketches from Detroit’s golden era you were never meant to see (PBS) “The designs were never meant to leave the studios. Automakers routinely destroyed early sketches for fear they would fall into the wrong hands. But some of them made their way out of Ford, GM and Chrysler, as well as now defunct Studebaker, Packard and AMC. According to one designer, they were smuggled out in boxes with false bottoms.”
➵ Watch: “Rides of the Wild” by Frédéric Müller (MB&F) This is such a fun project - I would love to see even more of these. If your car was an animal, what would it be? Mine would probably be a beluga whale…
➵ Read: What Leaders Can Learn from Formula 1 Pit Crews (Forbes) “In seconds, the pit crew tore off four tires, filled a tank of gas, screwed on four new tires, and leapt out of the way for the car to scream back onto the track. Working as if controlled by a hive mind, the Formula 1 crews made the [Great Ormond Street Hospital] staff look like monkeys fighting over ventilator tubes.”
➵ Look: The Volkswagen Beetle three ways (Bored Panda) 1) Mini Bikes aka “Volkspods” 2) Bug Campers and 3) Batman Roadster
➵ Read: Bullitt: How the Greatest Car Chase Was Filmed (from Muscle Car Review, 1987) “‘We realized we didn’t know what to do because no one had ever done this before.’ What hadn’t been done before was a chase scene, done ‘at speed’ (up to 110 miles per hour) through the city streets and not on a movie studio back lot. Bud Elkins said, ‘I think it was the first time they did a complete car chase at normal camera speed. What you saw is what really happened. It was real!’”
➵ Read: Driving James Bond’s Original Aston Martin DB5 Left Us Shaken and Stirred (Robb Report) “This was the true original, chassis No. DP216/1, the so-called ‘gadget’ car and not one of the two replicas built for publicity or the action example used for long shots. This came with all the spectacular gizmos fictitiously supplied from Q Branch of the British Secret Service; the ejector seat, the rear-wheel-mounted tire shredder, the bullet-proof screen and those front-mounted machine guns. This was also the car that, just 18 months later, mysteriously vanished from a secure hangar at Florida’s airport in Boca Raton, never to be seen again.”
➵ Read: What Fred Rogers Taught Us About Cars (The Drive) “During the course of 900-plus episodes and 33 years, a wide variety of toy cars cycled throughout the mini set, including a mid-70s AMC Pacer, and—in later years—a trendy VW New Beetle. According to Whitmer, the staff picked up many of the toys at thrift stores and made an effort to include more than just sports cars and hot rods.”
“When you are driving, you’re outside and inside, moving and completely still, all at the same time. I think that’s something.” —Jerry Seinfeld
I hope you loved the Cars guide! For more Discovery & Play Guides, click this green button here for the full archive.
Au revoir, jaguar (pronounced like the British car, obviously: Au revoir, jag-you-wah).
Love, Kathryn