The Road to Wherever

A middle grade novel about a boy stuck on a summer road trip with his offbeat auto-mechanic cousins—a humor- and heart-filled journey that leads him to an unexpected confrontation with some broken-down parts of himself.



After eleven-year-old June Ball’s dad disappears without so much as a note, June’s mother sends him on the road with his adult cousins, Thomas and Cornell Ball. The Balls are “Ford Men”; their calling in life is to restore old Ford cars—and only Ford cars. So begins a summer traveling around the country, encountering broken-down Fairlanes, Thunderbirds, and Model Ts. They also encounter the cars’ owners, who often need fixing of their own. June doesn’t understand his cousins’ passion for all things Ford, but in every town and city, there’s a chance he might find his father. And at every turn, June realizes that this journey is about more than giving cars some TLC—there’s room to restore the broken parts of humans, too. A story of adventure, longing, and growing up.