This entertaining book navigates readers through the history of car production and offers a front-seat view of the science and engineering that makes the world’s most important vehicle safe for us to drive.

Cars take us to work. To school. To soccer practice. To the grocery store and home again. Can you imagine a world without them? It’s not easy! One of the reasons we can use cars so much in our everyday lives is because they are safe to drive. But that hasn’t always been the case. If it weren’t for the experiments conducted over decades that involved all kinds of crash test volunteers—dead, alive, animal, or automated—cars as we know them might not be around. And then how would you get to school?

Filled with fun four-wheeled nuggets of history and explanations of how cars actually work, this nonfiction book from former science educator and award-winning author Jennifer Swanson will appeal to lovers of all things that go and readers who are interested in getting in under the hood and seeing how things work.