NATIONAL BESTSELLER

For readers of Andrew Solomon's Far From the Tree and Ian Brown's The Boy in the Moon, here is a heartfelt, funny and surprising memoir about one year spent driving a bus full of children with special needs.

One morning in 2008, desperate, broke and living alone while trying unsuccessfully to write, Craig Davidson plucked a flyer out of his mailbox that read “Bus Drivers Wanted.” And so began his new career: driving a school bus for kids with special needs.

Fortified with a sense of humour similar to that of his charges, a creative approach to the challenge of driving an awkward vehicle while corralling a rowdy gang of schoolchildren, and unexpected reserves of empathy, Davidson takes us along for the ride. He shows us his evolving relationship with each of the kids on that bus as they struggle physically, emotionally and socially, and he gradually reveals the much bigger world he imagines might exist outside the bus—a world with potential for both himself and his charges.

Precious Cargo is a moving and universal story about how we see and treat people with special needs in our society.