Alice is determined to build the fastest car in the boys-only soap box derby in this empowering true tale of ingenuity, engineering, and the joy of creating your dreams.

Alice loves swooping through the clouds in Daddy’s biplane. She and he even flew through a howling tornado when Alice was only three! Grounded now by the Great Depression, Alice is yearning for more thrilling adventure when she sees a newspaper ad for a soap box derby where kids will race their own homemade, gravity-powered cars. Excitement is spreading like prairie fire! But wait—the race is only for boys? Alice knows she can be a race-car driver too. So, she and Daddy work hard in his machine shop to build the speediest car they can. Ball bearings let the wheels spin smoothly, rubber tires absorb bumps in the pavement, sleek surfaces slice through the air, and the crowning glory: an airplane’s nose cone! The day of the race, forty thousand people turn out to watch hundreds of boys compete—and one Mystery Driver. At the crack of the starter pistol, Alice flies toward the checkered flag . . . Get ready for an action-packed story complete with fascinating back matter that digs deeper into the science and people involved.

MIT Kids Press (an imprint of Candlewick Press), June 24, 2025
ISBN-13: 9781536231571 / ISBN-10: 1536231576
Page Count: 48 / Age Range: 4 to 8

ACTIVITIES

Find activity sheets, teaching tips, and exclusive footage from the first All-American Soap Box Derby.

Activities

INTERVIEWS

For an insider’s view of how Mystery Driver was created, read my interview with Susanna Leonard Hill and Anna Aronson’s interview in the Bright Agency Newsletter.