Repeated for over two hundred years as an oral tradition, the legend of Betsy Dowdy is a classic American tale of a girl who simply believed she could be free. Inspired by the danger and daring of this ordinary North Carolinian girl, THE RIDE is a story about stepping up to help the cause you believe in, doing even what little you can, and building the United States of America.

This book has been graded for interest at 4-8 years.

There are 40 pages in this book. This is a picture book. A picture book uses pictures and text to tell the story. The number of words varies from zero ('wordless') to around 1k over 32 pages. Picture books are typically aimed at young readers (age 3-6) but can also be aimed at older children (7+). This book was published 2010 by Simon & Schuster .

Kitty Griffin was born in Germany and adopted by Americans. She has traveled from one end of the USA to the other, living at twenty-eight different "permanent" addresses, with much of her childhood spent in Virginia. She has worked as a counselor, a mailman, a waitress, a secretary, and, of course, as a children's book author. She teaches in the MFA Writing for Children program at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, PA. She lives in Washington County, Pennsylvania with her husband and assorted furry friends. She can also be found at www. kittygriffin. com. Marjorie Priceman, illustrator of many acclaimed picture books, has won Caldecott Honors for her illustrations in Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin! by Lloyd Moss and Hot Air: The (Mostly) True Story of the Frist Hot-Air Balloon Ride, which she also wrote. She lives in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.