How to Fit a Car Seat on a Camel: And Other Misadventures Traveling with Kids

by Sarah Franklin (Editor)

Have you ever struggled to dislodge a nostril-bound Cheerio while navigating the interstate at 70 miles an hour? Discovered exactly how many renditions of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” it takes for you to pull the car to the side of the road and weep? Or experienced just what happens when your miniature traveling companion pulls the “manual override” lever on the emergency exit door of a plane? You’re not alone. We all have memories of a hideous yet hilarious family trip.Now you can read about some that make your trip look like a vacation with the Waltons.Edited by Sarah Franklin, How to Fit a Car Seat on a Camel is an anthology of outrageous stories about the inherent misadventures that revolve around traveling with kids. Whether the trip is with newborn triplets or with moody teens, a road trip to the beach or a European vacation, each story will resonate with parents who hit the road or the tarmac with kids in tow.

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel, Essays, Childrens, Parenting

324 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 29, 2008

About the author

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

Elrena Evans holds an MFA from The Pennsylvania State University, and is co-editor of Mama, Ph.D.: Women Write about Motherhood and Academic Life (Rutgers University Press, 2008). Her writing has also appeared in Brain, Child, Hip Mama, MotherVerse, Literary Mama, Mamazine, and the anthologies Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers (Random House, 2006) and How to Fit a Car Seat on a Camel (Seal Press, 2008). She is the Marketing and Publicity Manager for Literary Mama, where she also writes the monthly column Me and My House. She lives in Pennsylvania with her family and blogs at her website, http://www.elrenaevans.com. "

Reviews

[Kendra · Rating 1 out of 5]

Blah. This book had such good promise. There are a million stories about funny travels from mothers. I've heard hundreds personally...I even have one or two. This book was such a disappointment. Most of the stories were funny situations that happens to all of us....throw up all over, or forgetting our kids transitional object. There were 2 or 3 that were HILARIOUS!! Very funny, I had to read them to Dave. But, there were way too many that were just mushy "I like love my kid" stories, some of them nothing bad even happened.
I look at this book as a way for mothers to brag about their crazy vacations that they insisted on taking their 6 month old on. The travels were amazing, but that's not why I got the book. I always finish books and I had to skim the last few chapters on this. I don't like it, wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

[Patricia Tennant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took my time with this... Obviously. Got a little tired of the toddler and baby stories. I get that those are memorable but a little too much poop etc. for me. My favorite was the one of the mom and the teen daughter. It was spot on for my current situation and I enjoyed her memory at the end of the daughter goofing with her little brother.

[Rudy Seifert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Long past the age of "fun with small children", these stories are heart-warmingly fun(mostly)

[Sara]

I thought this was just family, but it is an anthology of moms traveling with young kids and babies. A few had poignant moments.

[Sina Lucia · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have to admit, I'm not sure I'm going to get through this book anytime soon... I was hoping for a mix of different interesting tales, told in different unique voices... instead I've found that every story sound exactly like the one before - written in the exactly same style and language. What a big dissappointment!! The only things that change are the circumstances and the names. Each story starts out with a "funny" one-liner about the theme of this story and what happens in the end - basically giving away the climax up front, and then proceeds to go through the back-story and let us all know how we got there. Really? Do you really need to do that?? It's only a 3-5 page story, there's really no build of anticipation, here... It just goes to show that this editor thinks folks have no attension pan and no imagination and actually want to be told ahead of time what's going on, rather than actually leading us on an interesting tale.

So, finally, I just decided to hold my breath and finish this book. Yuck. Not worth my time - what a waste.

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this collection of essays written by women who travel with their children. Most of the women traveled adventurously and extensively prechildren and had many preconceived (and misinformed) notions of what it would be like to travel with children. Many of their thoughts revolved around the fantasy of having perfectly behaved and predictable children. Ha!

My adventures traveling with children pale in comparison to these stories. But I also do not take many of the extreme risks some of these authors did (for example, traveling down a raging river by canoe with an infant in a booster seat, or taking a 3-month-old along for a 1-hour trip in a two-seater plane [when the mom is the pilot]).

The two most memorable stories for me were (1) flying first class with an infant on British Air (made me laugh out loud, which is a rare feat!), and (2) taking a safari adventure ride at an amusement park in South Korea.

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title is definitely catchy, but quickly the book descends into a lot of stories of airport chaos and lamenting about the days gone by when one would travel without children in tow. I did find certain stories fantastic tho, and for those the book gets 3 stars. The couple who take 3 months to study abroad and live in a tiny village in Ecuador...fantastic. I wish they had written a small book about it. And the family that travel to Germany is a wonderful way to close the book. The couple who decide to canoe with a 6 month old had me in a small panic, when reading at bed time is supposed to be relaxing (thus I ended up finishing the book, wide-eyed and alert). For all the stories that are the same, there are most definitely some gems. It's by no means a how-to manual, but I would have loved to read more exotic travel and less airport chaos.

[Tobinsfavorite · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was given this as a gift, and it took me quite some time to read it because the first few stories I read were off-putting, either because the narrator/author annoyed me or because the behavior encountered was more irritating than amusing to me. I am glad I persevered because there were a few gems in the bunch. Still, there were too many stories where very usual behavior was presented as startling, or where the author started the retelling on a very defensive note.

At one point, I realized that all the stories were by mothers, not parents, but since the publishing house is a "for women, by women" concern, I guess I don't get to miss the fathers' input, but I'd still like to read a few of those stories.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is billed as a collection of humorous stories about traveling with kids. Some of the stories were funny, and most of them were totally painful. As in "I totally saw that coming" kind of painful (the kid who pukes if he's given milk on car trips has milk, then pukes). They were also almost stereotypical in their portrayal of "the kids are in charge" parenting (the parents who sing their daughter her favorite kiddy songs on demand for the entire 6 hours of their trip).Then there were the purely crazy (the ones who took their unvaccinated toddler to live in the Andes for 3 months and the ones who took a 4 month old baby canoeing down a river with whitewater). It should be fun to see what stories my fellow book club members have of their own travels with kids.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are hilarious true short stories by moms who have traveled with their children - everywhere from the U.S. to the Far East to Europe. My favorites involved harried parents and their toddlers & babies, involved in security fiascos at US airports :) Oh, and the two sisters who traveled by train from Minnesota to North Dakota with four preemie quadruplets just released from the hospital...in a stateroom the size of a closet. And the mom pilot who decided to take screaming 3-month-old Emma as her copilot on a flight from Arizona to New Mexico. You get the picture! Lots of vicarious laughs :)

[Teresacooks · Rating 2 out of 5]

This looked so good. In reality it was like a mediocre collection of your friends anecdotes about ordinary travel mishaps with kids. Funny if they're you're friends, pretty pedestrian if they're not. Almost every single story started with how the author was a carefree traveler when they were single and vowed they'd: a) never be one of those poor schlepps traveling with kids or b)they'd never let any future offspring get in the way of their carefree travelling ways. Yawn. Guess how they all end?

[Michelle · Rating 1 out of 5]

From the looks of the book you would expect the book to be quite funny. I think I found 1 story to be hilarious. The others were either annoying because the parents were dumber than rocks or they were the equivilant or reading something out of the Chicken soup for the soul books. If I wanted heartwarming and touching I would watch Oprah or turn on the Lifetime Channel. I kept reading because I was hoping that at least another story would be funny or amusing, but it never happened. This was just not my cup of tea, but I'm sure others would fund it appealing.

[Laurie]

It's very hard to write about being a parent without sounding annoying and self-absorbed; most of the pieces I read didn't manage it. Also, I was bothered by the two different essays that described risking the lives of their babies (by taking them whitewater-rafting and flying in a two-seater plane), both of which ended with a sort of "Ha ha! Guess that wasn't a good idea!" conclusion (the baby was not injured in either case).

[Meg · Rating 2 out of 5]

My boss gave this to me to read since she knows how much Everett and I liked to travel. I thought that most of the stories could have come straight out of Reader's Digest. They didn't really do much for me, other than to provide me with things NOT to do when traveling with kids. I didn't find many of the stories funny; instead I was wondering how DFCS hadn't taken away these people's kids! Skip it, unless you want to read things to make yourself feel better.

[Relyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

10/24/08
The cover photo reminds me of a photo I featured on my blog so, of course, it caught my attention. I think this is going to be a funny, delightful read.

5/28/09
I finally got around to reading this. As I recall, it wasn't delightful. Just a bit dull. It felt like the same basic story with the details changed to create different potty humor. Neh.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This books contains a series of essays about various women traveling with their children. As someone who loves to travel and hopes to continue traveling now that I have a child, these stories are really hitting home. Most of them are quite funny, and they're all insightful and a little touching. Recommended!

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. My husband and I want to travel and it makes you realize that is possible, though there will be disasters both big and small. I thoroughly enjoyed that not all the essays were humorous. There were several that were quite touching. iAs I get interrupted often I appreciated that it was also a easy book to pick up and put down frequently.

[Liz · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a collection of short stories...namely about traveling with kids. I heavily identified with the ones that talked about how (pre-kids) we seamlessly expected our children to adapt to our lifestyle. (Yeah, we were the ones who said that having kids wouldn't change our lives too much...ha ha ha). It's a decent beach read.

[Lisa Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of short humorous stories of traveling with mostly young kids or babies in tow. Brought back very vivid memories of "those were the days", and make me remember why I prefer my teens... but hats off to the adventurous in this book. Inspiring, and horrible, at the same time. Good read.

[Carmen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Spoiler alert - nobody in this book actually tries to put a car seat on a camel. In fact, only one story had the word camel in it and it wasn't very prominent. Most stories were about the travails of travelling with young toddlers in airports or cars, which became quite monotonous after a surprisingly short time.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a cute book. I thought it could have been edited a bit more, but overall it was worth the read. I find myself thinking of several of the travel advenutes quite often! I would recommend it - but don't feel guilty of you skip an advenuture here and there!

[Magda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some funny, some weird, many both.

[Valerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laugh out loud funny! The funniest stories are at the beginning of the book, though. A great read right before bed.

[Diana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amusing summer reading...although probably best to read AFTER you've taken that road trip to Grandma's.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I could add a few misadventures of our own! It's only funny after the fact, or if it happened to someone else!

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of vomit, leaky diapers and awkward moments involving a breast pump.

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

As is usually the case with essay collections, this one was a little uneven. Still, I liked it overall.

[Andrea Duquette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick and humorous collection of short essays for anyone who has done any travelling with their kids.

[Shoshana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had its fun moments.

[Marissa Genta Pineda · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was expecting this to be a tongue in cheek "how to" for traveling with kids. Instead it was a whinging set of essays by people who have traveled with kids. I couldn't get into it.