Electric Dreams: One Unlikely Team of Kids and the Race to Build the Car of the Future

by Caroline Kettlewell

When Berkeley graduate Eric Ryan was sent by Teach for America to a hardscrabble high school in the heart of North Carolina's NASCAR country, he didn't count on Harold Miller — a big guy with a big laugh and a tarheel accent as thick as sorghum syrup — sticking his head into his class one morning and announcing, "Hey Mr. Ryan, we're gonna build an electric car." Two regional utilities had challenged a group of elite schools throughout the South to design and build battery-powered electric vehicles to be judged during a final contest at NASCAR's Richmond International Raceway. Although Ryan's underprivileged high school was not on the list, Miller managed to squeak them in. With a Ford Escort rescued from the compacter, a few hundred pounds of scavenged golf cart batteries, a local minor league NASCAR driver as coach, and the local constabulary looking the other way as the reborn "Shocker" began careening over back roads on test runs, the kids get their pasted-together dark horse to the big contest in Richmond. Electric Dreams offers drama built on marvelous small-town characters, and a story of never-say-die invention which would make North Carolina's other pioneers, the Wright Brothers, proud.

Genres: Young Adult, Adult

288 pages, Hardcover

First published March 15, 2004

Reviews

[De · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I drive an electric car and have met one of the teachers profiled in this book, so I am naturally pre-inclined to love this book. Which I did... a story about kids at a poor NC high school building an electric car and racing it against other schools. My favorite quote from the book is a quote from Richard Petty, after driving "Shocker": "That car has got some get-up-and-go, and it don't make no racket."

[Thelma Kastl]

Let me know if you have read this. During my time at the Ashe County Career Center by students were fortunate enough to have the mentorship of a local businessman and the support of the county to purchase an electrathon vehicle. It was painted like a cow and we calle dit Sparky. Electrathon is similar to the EV competition with the exception of electrathin requires the vehicle to be designed and made from scratch; not the conversion of an existing vehicle.

[Rylan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a somewhat entertaining story. The beginning starts off a little slow by introducing all the characters and how Eric Ryan got his job, and how he settles into Northampton, Carolina. Eric Ryan was a science teacher who met Harold which was an automotive teacher and Harold's dream was to build an electric car. Harold sought it out and said we wouldn't be a town of losers, we'd be known for once. Eric Ryan and his class bunched up with Harold's students and got to work.

[Ivah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A feel good book about a competition to build an electric car. A team of high school students from a poor school district in North Carolina competes with other more affluent school districts to build and race an electric car in NASCAR country. I liked the way it explained the technology of the car, and the dedication of the kids, their teachers and boosters.

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mostly on my favorites list because I taught at the school that serves as the setting for this story, and have met some of the key characters in the novel. By no means a literary masterpiece, but impactful enough to keep me motivated while in TFA.