Where the Roads Used to Be
The front cover: a bearded man named Bear sits with his scruffy dog Biscuit under a blossoming tree on a grassy hill. Below them, a river city with yellow bridges. A whale-shaped ship floats in the golden sky.

A picture book for ages 4 to 8

Where the Roads Used to Be

by Jordan Krueger

What if the highways became wildflower meadows?

Follow Bear through a whole life in a hopeful future: robots doing the heavy work, nobody needing money for the basics, and a chosen family that just keeps growing.

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  • Paperback, 8.5 × 8.5 in
  • 36 pages
  • Read-along edition included

About the book

What if you could be a starship engineer, then a cook, then a gardener, then a teacher, all in one life, because nobody had to work just to get by?

Where the Roads Used to Be follows Bear and his ever-growing chosen family through a hopeful future, for readers of every age who want to believe tomorrow can be kind, beautiful, healthy, and happy.

Bear plants a tree with his class the day the robots roll up the first highway. He fixes toasters at the Fix-It Café, where he meets his best friend, Josie. He sails off to the stars, comes home with Rowan, opens a restaurant where nobody pays, and spends his life making the table longer.

The back cover: a long table under string lights at night after a party, beside a cream-and-teal house, with the blurb in gold and cream letters across the starry sky.
The back cover
Pages 2 and 3: on a grassy hill above the city, a friendly teal robot rolls up an old highway like a rug while young Bear and his classmates plant a little tree with their teacher. The text reads: When Bear was small, the robots had just learned to do the heavy work. On the day they rolled up the first stretch of highway like an old gray rug, his teacher brought the whole class to plant a tree. “The robots can dig,” she said. “Deciding what’s worth growing is up to us.”
Pages 2–3: The First Tree
Pages 18 and 19: in a wildflower meadow, Bear kneels and laughs as a scruffy little dog licks his face while Rowan, Josie and her husband crowd around smiling. The text reads: …with a scruffy little dog. “He’s been waiting for you,” she said. His name was Biscuit, and he decided right then that Bear was his.
Pages 18–19: Meeting Biscuit

Every paperback comes with a read-along

Open the book on a phone, tablet or computer and let it read to you, or read it yourself with big, clear words.

  • A warm, unhurried voice reads every page, and each word lights up as it’s spoken.
  • Pages turn by themselves, with time to look at each picture, or turn them yourself.
  • Big words, a slower voice, keyboard and switch controls, and picture descriptions for screen readers.
  • No accounts, no ads and no tracking. It remembers your place on your own device.

Where’s my code? It’s printed on the last page of your paperback, with a QR code you can scan with your phone’s camera.

Open the read-along

For grown-ups

How do we get there?

The world in this book is closer than it looks. Some cities have already turned highways into parks. Machines already do work people used to break their backs doing. What’s left is deciding who that progress is for and making sure our voices are heard.

Make room at your table. Plant a tree. Teach a kid something you love. Then tell them about the future you hope for. They’ll build it because you planted the seed.

How this book was made

The pictures were made with AI image tools, and the story was shaped in long conversations with an AI, too. You deserve to know that.

Here’s the human part: Jordan invented every character, described every scene, checked every beard, every gray hair and every smile, threw out the pictures that were wrong, and read each page aloud until it sounded like a bedtime story. The read-along voice was made with ElevenLabs.

Bear at fifty, smiling with a salt-and-pepper beard, holding a basket of red apples.

About the author

Jordan Krueger has spent 30 years imagining adventures among the stars with friends online, and the rest of his time helping good causes untangle their technology. He lives near Pittsburgh, where he is always trying to make the table longer, and is using AI to help make the world in this book real.

Visit JordanKrueger.com

Book details

Title
Where the Roads Used to Be
Author
Jordan Krueger
Format
Paperback picture book, 8.5 × 8.5 inches, full color
Pages
36
Reading age
4 to 8 years
ISBN
979-8165874109
Published
Independently published, 2026
Includes
Online read-along edition, unlocked with the code in the book

Pull up a chair. The table is long.

Buy the paperback on Amazon