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Loading... Precious Cargo: My Year of Driving the Kids on School Bus 3077by Craig Davidson
   No current Talk conversations about this book.  lost_in_here | Jun 23, 2021 |    ) FurbyKirby | Jan 5, 2021 |  ) mielniczuk | Apr 4, 2018 | Author Craig Davidson, now a best-selling author, was broke, and feeling like a failure as a writer. The opportunity arose to apply to be a school bus driver. Out of desperation, he took the job. It suited him and his lifestyle: drive the kids to school in the morning, write during the day, pick the kids up at school in the late afternoon and take them home. Easy enough. But what he never expected, over the year that followed, was how much he would become engaged and involved - and in love - with his charges. The kids he drove were special needs students, 6 of them, each different, each special, in his or her own unique ways. But what unfolded over that year was a compassion and a slow unfolding of questions, answers and understanding that Davidson never anticipated and - to his credit - never shied away from. He embraced each challenge that arose, questioned his own uncertainties, admitted his own mistakes and explored his feelings and emotions. As a teacher of just such special needs kids, myself, for many years, I found his insights - and questions and responses - to be really genuine and heartfelt. I've personally known many of the bus drivers of my own students over the years and almost wish I were still working so I could share this book with a few of them! I may have to find a way to do that! ( ) jessibud2 | Mar 17, 2018 | Craig Davidson was a penniless writer who, upon finding a flyer in his mailbox, applied for and was hired as a school bus driver. He was assigned to Route 412: Special needs, 5 walks, 1 wheelchair. This book tells the story of his year driving these kids to and from school. During that year, Davidson learned a lot about the kids, about people with disabilities in general, and himself. He built a good relationship with his passengers, defending them (a bit too much at times) and learning how to relate to them as individuals, based on their needs. It is a heart-warming story of personal growth. The story of the year on the bus is interspersed with sections of an unpublished novel Davidson worked on, which features his passengers as heroes in a dystopian future. I could have done without that...or read it all together at the end. It broke up the story and took a while (for me at least) to figure out its relevance. The book is also repetitive at times. And, there are days where it seems he didn't pick up the kids...or he did, but didn't get them at the end of the day....I'm sure there were alternative arrangements made, but wondering where the kids were while he waited to get his bus repaired distracted me. Bottom line: some great insights, but could have been better executed. (  ) LynnB | Mar 8, 2018 | no reviews | add a review
NATIONAL BESTSELLER For readers of Kristine Barnett's The Spark, Andrew Solomon's Far From the Tree and Ian Brown's The Boy in the Moon, here is a heartfelt, funny and surprising memoir about one year spent driving a bus full of children with special needs. With his last novel, Cataract City, Craig Davidson established himself as one of our most talented novelists. But before writing that novel and before his previous work, Rust and Bone, was made into a Golden Globe-nominated film, Davidson experienced a period of poverty, apparent failure and despair. In this new work of riveting and timely non-fiction, Davidson tells the unvarnished story of one transformative year in his life and of his unlikely relationships with a handful of unique and vibrant children who were, to his initial astonishment and bewilderment, and eventual delight, placed in his care for a couple of hours each day--the kids on school bus 3077. One morning in 2008, desperate and impoverished while trying unsuccessfully to write, Davidson plucked a flyer out of his mailbox that read, "Bus Drivers Wanted." That was the first step towards an unlikely new career: driving a school bus full of special-needs kids for a year. Armed only with a sense of humour akin to that of his charges, a creative approach to the challenge of driving a large, awkward vehicle while corralling a rowdy gang of kids, and unexpected reserves of empathy, Davidson takes us along for the ride. He shows us how his evolving relationship with the kids on that bus, each of them struggling physically as well as emotionally and socially, slowly but surely changed his life along with the lives of the "precious cargo" in his care. This is the extraordinary story of that year and those relationships. It is also a moving, important and universal story about how we see and treat people with special needs in our society. No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)371.9Social sciences Education Schools and their activities; special education Education of special classesLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.82)
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Wikipedia in English
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I don’t know why this didn’t grab me harder than it did. It was okay. But... I don’t know. I liked the kids. For the most part, I liked Craig. But it just fell a little flat. (