The Colossus of Roads

March 15, 2020
Los Angeles' infamous traffic scene is a hot mess, and it's up to 11-year-old Rick Rusek to fix it. Deep in the San Fernando Valley lives the audacious young problem-solver, poring over maps of LA's highways and streets to diagnose a way to unclog the county's traffic woes. Ironically, Rick can't bear car trips due to an unrelenting case of motion sickness. Just ask his chatty stomach, a cheeseburger-obsessed conversationalist that helps Rick with unknotting the trickiest of ideas. Rick's chats with his stomach offer one source of reassurance after he finds out that his parents' catering business, Smotch (roots: Polish food), risks falling into financial troubles due in part to LA's notorious traffic flow. Convinced that his Snarl Solutions could help alleviate his parents' problems if only someone in power would listen, Rick joins his neighbor's Girl Scout group, led by a celebrated street artist with familial ties to the head of LA's Department of Transportation. Can the "Colossus of Roads" save his parents' business and lead LA toward a brighter future? Uss' slice of whimsy teleports readers to the smog-filled, congested streets of Los Angeles and gives them a hearty appreciation for big, improbable ideas. Thanks to a fun cast of eclectic characters, the author manages to temper the story's more peculiar moments, but it's her soft mix of humor and insight that steals the spotlight. Though Rick's neighbors are Latinx, the book's default seems to be white. Colossally cool. (Fiction. 9-12)

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Starred review from April 15, 2020
Grades 4-6 *Starred Review* Eleven-year-old Rick is an Angeleno with two truly unusual talents: a genius for understanding traffic patterns and how to fix them and a gift for coaxing trust and friendship out of Mila, a shy, silent, artistic younger neighbor. Both come into play when Mila quietly invites him to join her in a Girl Scouts arts project?fancifully repainting old road signs to be posted around the city as street art. To Rick, frustrated by repeated fruitless efforts to contact the local department of transportation, this looks like a golden opportunity to prove the worth of his ingenious Snarl Solutions while also saving his parents' Polish catering business, which is on the verge of going under due to an inability to make timely deliveries. A few forged work orders later, well-placed and amusingly altered signs have caused the hellish traffic jams on the freeway over Sepulveda Pass to disappear. But this triumph is just a warm-up for two even tougher tests. Mila's discovery that Rick, the self-styled Colossus of Roads, has used her work without asking opens a rift of betrayal that seems unbridgeable. Then a major earthquake leaves Mila's troop stranded amidst a massive tangle of blocked and impassable streets. Readers with underappreciated talents of their own will be heartened by Uss' (The Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle, 2018) ultimately unabashedly feel-good sophomore tale.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

June 5, 2020

Gr 4 Up-When readers are first introduced to 11-year-old Rick Rusek, it seems that the only friend Rick has is his chatty stomach, which is so affected by motion sickness that he transfers back to his neighborhood school from the math and science magnet (the new bus schedule caused his route home to be longer, and his fragile stomach couldn't withstand such a ride). Rick's mom's catering business is on the verge of closure due to continuously missed appointments and late deliveries. Clients are not concerned with the massive traffic jams everyone in his Southern California community faces daily; they are only concerned with punctual delivery service for their food. Rick has been obsessed with delivery routes since second grade and this year is no different; except this year he's prepared a colossal road plan to alleviate the ginormous traffic snarls that could save his mom's business. To get this done, he will need the help of a Girl Scout troop, a famous artist, and a NASCAR-trained abuelita. The intergenerational cast of characters emphasizes how people of different ages can work together to improve their community. VERDICT In this heartwarming, fast-paced story, Uss seamlessly weaves STEAM threads along with a dose of wit and humor to help readers focus on the importance of friendship, family, and second chances.-Sabrina Carnesi, Crittenden M.S., Newport News, VA

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