The Hitchhikers

by Paul Thompson, Susan Kuklin

Two troubled teenagers meet while hitchhiking to California for a better life.

83 pages, Library Binding

First published March 1, 1980

About the author

Librarian Note: There are more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Stephanie A. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't quite remember how I came across this title, though I assume it was a (wrong) guess on one of the lost-book forums, but there was so little information about it online that my curiosity was piqued, and it's been haunting my TBR for three years now. At last, though, it's on OpenLibrary!

And now I see: there is truly not much to say about this book; it's a Hi-Lo read to the extreme. It genuinely is only 83 pages, except half of those pages are photographs and the other half have large font and significant line spacing. I am not kidding:



The author apparently "spent seventeen years directing the production of educational filmstrips" and that's exactly what this book feels like. A short little filmstrip translated to book form, about what it's like to run away from home with limited money in your pocket, and depend on the kindness of strangers.

I will grant you, it is somewhat interesting to have the equivalent of a picture book for older readers; the photographs are engaging and make a lovely time capsule of 1970s clothing and hairstyles. There's just not much meat on its skeletal outline: a kind-hearted simpleton on a mission to find his dad, having run away from his mom's constant complaints, crosses paths with a girl on her way to see the MIA boyfriend who knocked her up. They each find ways to earn a little money to feed /house themselves along the way and eventually team up to pick up rides, but ultimately -- shocker -- find out that California has nothing to offer either of them, and so decide they're better off going back home after all, because at least their families will accept them.