A Love of Cars + A Love of Space = Lowriders in Space!

Winter Bingo Card

When I was a kid, I loved all the library reading programs (big shout out to the Palo Alto College Terrace Branch, my home away from home!) - one of the great reading joys I've had as a parent is introducing Ben to similar programs at our local library.  Over the winter break, the library sponsored a Winter Bingo game.  Each kid received a bingo card where the spaces listed activities related to reading, like "Read a comic" and other non-reading ones like, "Play outside."  Ben almost achieved a "black-out."  I actually think he missed "Tell a joke," which he has been making up for in spades over the last week (that post to come soon!).

When it came time to pick out a book, Ben lingered over the choices for a long time.  He said he wanted a chapter book or something long so it would take awhile to read.  But, all the chapter books were for much older kids (meaning there were no pictures!), so Ben settled on a comic book called Loweriders in Space (which has made me realize that I need to educate myself a bit more about comics vs. graphic novels).

He then put the book on the shelf and it sat there unread...until he rediscovered it this week.  And he LOVES it.  Lowriders in Space  tells the story of three friends who work in a car repair garage.  Lupe is a master mechanic, El Chavo clean like nobody's business, and Elirio is an artistic genius.  They dream of owning their own garage, and the opportunity presents itself an the Annual Car Competition.  They set out to fix up and old lowrider...which takes them on an intergalactic adventure to build the best car in the universe!  Ben loves anything to do with cars - but the idea of "art" cars is a new one for him, and he has suggested several times since reading this that we should paint our car!  The space section of the book was also fun since there were concepts we've been learning about such as moons and planets, but introduced him to new things like black holes and constellations.  This book has inspired us to seek out a lowrider competition, as well as a planetarium.  Just a tremendously creative book that combines two things so many kids love - cars and space, and has the potential for opening up so many new paths of exploration.