TRAIN I RIDE

A poignant middle-grade debut about a girl who travels by train from Los Angeles to Chicago to meet an unknown relative, and learns along the way that she can create a family of her own.

Rydr is on a train heading east. She is leaving California, where her grandmother cannot take care of her anymore, and traveling to Chicago, where she will live with a relative she has never met. She brings with her a backpack, memories both happy and sad, and a box, containing something very important.

As Rydr meets her fellow passengers and learns their stories, her own story begins to emerge – a story that sometimes Rydr would like to forget. But as much as Rydr may want to run away from her past – the death of her mother and grandmother, and the fact she does not know her father – on the train she finds that hope and forgiveness are all around her, and most importantly, within her, if she is willing to look for it.


Paul Mosier lives a short walk from the place of his birth in downtown Phoenix, Arizona, but a very circuitous route brought him there. He is married with two daughters. He loves listening to baseball on the radio, eating vegetarian food, drinking coffee, talking nonstop, and riding trains. In fact, he has ridden most of the route described in his first book, Train I Ride.