Picture Book of the Week: The Yellow Bus

This week I read these 5 books:

Out of a Jar

Big Sister, Long Coat

Heartfelt

The Yellow Bus

Sleepy Sheepy and the Sheepover

Two of these books I thought were going to go head to head as my favorite book of the week. So I was surprised when those two books were not as impressive as I thought they were going to be.

My favorite book of the week I had never heard of nor had I even seen anything by this Author/Illustrator.

The Yellow Bus was delightful to read. Before I read the book, I thought the author/illustrator was just going to use a style of black and white with a yellow accent. But I was delighted to find that the illustrator’s use of color was not only intentional but was a woven into the fabric of the book.

The color rule in this book’s world is everything is black and white unless it is the bus, inside the bus, or doing something to the bus. One foot on the first step of the bus counts as being in the bus. Using a paintbrush to paint the bus counts as well. But if you take a part of the bus away, you don’t get to be in color. If you or something you are holding is touching the bus, you get to be in color.

And this is true for every picture in the book except for one. When the bus feels empty, the color rule is reversed. The bus is a black hole and the rest of the world has color.

In addition to some very cool illustration design and world building, the text of the book has some fun repetitions.

“The Yellow Bus carried them from one important place to another.”

and

“…they filled her with joy.”

Without directly coming out and saying it, this book teaches that real joy doesn’t come from youth or material possessions. It comes from being a part of other people’s lives.

Go find a copy of this book to read. The ending is one of those expected surprises. You didn’t see it coming, but you kind of did, and you are still surprised and satisfied.