The Ride of Our Lives: Roadside Lessons of an American Family
Mike Leonard, 2006
Random House
240 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345481498
Summary
The Ride of Our Lives is the humorous yet deeply moving account of NBC journalist Mike Leonard’s cross-country odyssey with his eccentric parents, three grown children, and a daughter-in-law.
Full of ups and downs, laughs and tears, the month-long journey becomes a much larger tale of hope, persistence, and valuable lessons learned along the way.
A celebration of the ties between parents and children, as well as the unforgettable community of people one can meet across America, The Ride of Our Lives is an inspiring narrative of self-discovery and self-fulfillment–and how one unique family found blessings and simple pleasures on the road called lifets. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—November 30, 1947
• Where—Paterson, New Jersey, USA
• Raised—suburb, north of Chicago, Illinois
• Education—Providence College
• Currently—lives in Winnetka, Illinois, USA
Michael "Mike" Leonard is an American television journalist presently working for The Today Show on NBC. Leonard has been a feature correspondent for on the show for 28 years, and is known for his stories on everyday life and the unique, creative way he presents his work.
Leonard is also part of a family video production company, Picture Show Films. The company uses digital video exclusively and edits its projects on PowerBooks. Picture Show has produced critically-acclaimed television shows, features for PBS, ESPN, and other news outlets, and videos for fund-raising, corporate training, and other projects. Picture Show is also credited for producing The Brendan Leonard Show, hosted by his son Brendan Leonard.
In 1989, Leonard had the honor of having a G.I. Joe figure sculpted after his likeness by Hasbro. They named their character, Scoop, whose given name was "Leonard Michaels," in honor of the real newsman. Scoop was also in the communications field, just like his inspiration.
In 2006, Leonard published The Ride of Our Lives: Roadside Lessons of an American Family, about a month-long road trip he took with his parents and grown children in an RV. Leonard has four grown children, Matt, Megan, Kerry, and Brendan, and three grandchildren, and currently resides in Winnetka, Illinois with his wife, Cathy. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Heartfelt and whimsical...a cross-country trek through life’s lessons.... Mike Leonard is a storyteller at heart, and each anecdote...punctuates the family’s love, struggles, and triumphs. In short, this is one ride worth taking.
Rocky Mountain News
Fans of NBC News correspondent Leonard's slice-of-life features for the Today show may enjoy this account of a month-long road trip he took with his parents, now in their 80s. But what works on screen doesn't translate to the printed page, and Leonard's attempt to merge a tribute to his parents with greater issues of life and death hits a dead end. As he drives from Chicago through the Southwest, up the East Coast and back to Chicago, Leonard intertwines his reflections with biographical stories by and about his somewhat eccentric parents. Their tales offer the book's most entertaining moments: phlegmatic Jack, who's "conversational `off' button got jammed," likes to sing old songs, while gregarious Marge likes to drink and repeatedly spices her conversation with profanity ("Toora loora, my ass!" she yells during one of Jack's songs). Although Marge's behavior begins to seem more unnerving than unusual, Leonard's account of her brave childhood with an abusive father is the book's highlight. But Leonard keeps putting himself at the center of the story, detailing how charmed his life has been from his college prep high school days to lucking into his TV career, which makes for dull reading.
Publishers Weekly
Take a road trip, combine it with the dynamics of three generations of a family living in close quarters, and the results can be worth sharing. Leonard, NBC's Today Show correspondent, leads the adventure by taking his retired parents and three adult children on a month-long trip from Phoenix to Chicago to be present for the birth of his first grandchild. Along the way, this extended family stops at places like the Alamo and Leonard's parents' alma maters and visits acquaintances from Leonard's previous reporting. Each stop offers further insight into this quirky family and sparks humorous and touching reminiscences of family history. Whether recounting his happy childhood or unearthing new discoveries about his parents' lives, Leonard delivers his engaging account with the same offbeat storytelling style that is the hallmark of his television reporting. His is a story of taking the time to learn about your family and appreciating the sometimes odd people you find in its ranks. —Sheila Kasperek, Mansfield Univ. Lib., PA
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for The Ride of Our Lives:
1. What motivates Leonard to organize this road trip with his parents and children across the U.S? Would you have dared to attempt this with your own family?
2. In literature, as far back as The Odyssey, books about journeys represent a journey of self-discovery. Even though Leonard's trip is a real cross-country road-trip, in what way does he present it as the classic fictional "journey"? Who learns what...about whom?
3. How would you enjoy traveling with Leonard's parents? Talk about Jack and Marge—as characters, as well as parents and grandparents. How do you explain their affection for one another when they seem so incompatible as a married couple?
4. Where are the fault-lines in this family? Where do they fall—between Leonard and his parents...or Leonard and his kids? What is the nature of—and reason for—so-called "generational gaps"? Why do they occur in almost every family, most likely even your own? Speculate on why grandparents and grandchildren seem to get along so well.
5. What does Leonard learn about his parents—for instance, his mother's alcoholic father...his father's childhood trip to Ireland?
6. What were Mike Leonard's own struggles as a child? How did he overcome them? Would it have been different (easier... harder) in today's world? How did his experiences shape his life as a broadcast journalist?
7. Pick out the passages you found particularly funny...and talk about them. Also, those passages that your found most poignant—perhaps Jack and Marge's visit to their college campuses...or their old neighborhood in New Jersey.
8. What was most appealing to you about the places that the Leonard family visited—perhaps the B&B in the Bayou country where the sign says" Pick a room. Take a key. We'll see you for breakfast"? Any others? How did you feel about the diversity and quirkiness of the U.S. after reading this book? Make you want to take a road-trip?
9. Care to make comparisons between the Leonard family and your own?
10. What does this work suggest, if anything, about growing old in the 21st century?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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