My Grandma Rides A Motorcycle
The concept for this book began with a family road trip along the Mississippi River. At the start of our day we viewed a motorcycle awareness video. This particular presentation is one made to driver’s education students and teaches new drivers how to share the road with motorcycles. It illustrates why motorcycles behave the way they do in traffic and what obstacles motorcycle riders must overcome while on the road.
Having paid close attention to the lessons in the video, my 8 year old granddaughter Allison, observed what could have become a dangerous situation. She noticed a car pulling out into traffic a little too close to the vehicle coming up in the lane saying, “AND THAT'S HOW MOTORCYCLES GET HIT!” Those words got me thinking that maybe, just maybe motorcycle awareness and safety training should be taught at a much younger age than originally thought. A teenager’s attention often competes with girlfriends, boyfriends, jobs, dances, college, sports, homework, new found freedoms and learning to drive. If we could introduce motorcycle awareness and safety at a young age and continuously reinforce it during childhood, then perhaps by the time these children begin driving they will instinctively know how to “LOOK FOR MOTORCYCLES” and will instinctively “SEE” motorcycles on the road, which, as most of us in the motorcycling community knows, is the single most important thing we can do to prevent motorcycle crashes and rider injury.
As a result
“My Grandma Rides A Motorcycle”
Took on life.
Book Specifics:
- The pre-school aged child is the targeted audience for this book because they can't read. This allows the story teller themselves to become conscious of and hear the message being told.
- The text is written in a rhyming format that facilitates both the reader and the child to "remember" what is being told. The rhyming also lends itself to become an easy-to-read format for both the story teller and the beginning reader.
- The child depicted in the book is present on most pages to illustrate the correlation between Grandma and child and is used to parallel their lives. For example, Grandma rides a red motorcycle and the child rides a red bicycle. Grandma parks her motorcycle in the garage and the child parks his bicycle in the garage. Both modes of transportation have kickstands, handlebars, etc.
- Grandma was chosen as the main character, not because she is Grandma. She was chosen to show that not only men ride, but also women - not only young people ride, but also the older generation rides. Riding is not only trans-gender but is also trans-generational.
- A cardboard book is more durable and long lasting and was chosen as the print medium for those reasons.
