Mary Sennewald

Roadschooling Ryan: Learn As We Go Mary Sennewald

This offbeat memoir recounts the odyssey of a sixty-year-old mother and her seventeen-year-old son who hit the road for his junior year.

In August, 2002, the pair left St. Louis in a 1987 Volkswagen van to wander up the Mississippi into Canada, across to Newfoundland, down through New England, deep into southern Mexico, ending their journey in the high country of Colorado. This provocative tale of foibles and family, astonishment, missteps, and magical moments challenges preconceptions about education, freedom, and necessities for a good life.

By turns funny, poignant, and heart-warming, Roadschooling Ryan: Learn As We Go is about a young man on the brink of adulthood peering into the world, and a mother insisting on doing his schooling her way. It is also about survival, relative sanity, and compassion in very close quarters. Most of all, it is about having a great time no matter where the road leads.