Fiction - Transportation & Travel, Poetry - Rhymes, Nursery Rhymes & Fingerplays, Fiction - Emotions & Behaviors, Fiction - General & Miscellaneous, Fiction - Schools & Friendship

I'm Your Bus

Name: I'm Your Bus
Author: Marilyn Singer
ISBN: 9780545089180

by Marilyn Singer, Evan Polenghi

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Overview

A fun day-in-the-life of a school bus and his road-hugging buddies

Get ready for a rip-roaring, rhyming ride that celebrates all things drivin' with a special spotlight on a kid's four-wheeled best buddy--his school bus! When you're a kid, your school bus can be your very best friend. Morning, noon, and nighttime, too, that golden buddy is at your service. Ready to drive you and your friends to and from school.

And in-between those golden-bus moments, there are other vehicles who drive around town doing what they do best--sweeping, crunching, watching, creeping! Here is an in-your-face read-aloud that is bound to become a modern classic.

Synopsis

ADVANCED PRAISE

Here's the word on the street about I'M YOUR BUS:

"You go, Bus!"

--Local Firetruck

"I wish I had your job."

--Neighborhood Garbage Truck

"If only my kids loved me as much as they love you."

--The Family Car

"You're a credit to vehicles everywhere."

--A Police Car

Children's Literature

With his wide grill grin and happy windshield eyes, this bus is a real charmer. The cadence of Marilyn Singer's poetry fairly sings as she celebrates the reliable school bus. Readers follow the bus from its early morning waking, picking up the kids, and delivering them safely to school. "Watch those backpacks coming through. Have fun today. Learn something new" the bus admonishes its riders. Picking up and dropping off are not the only duties of a school bus. There are lost items to keep safe until the kids' return, field trips to ferry them to and, patient parking and waiting during quiet hours. At dismissal "buses lined up in a row, find your bus and off you'll go" and at days end buses settled in the yard. "We had fun and we worked hard." After a restful night the buses roll once again because "tomorrow you can count on us. Daytime, nighttime, I'm your bus". From the cheery cover to the bright yellow endpapers, and the bouncy rhyme within, this is a winner. Kids will eagerly join in the infectious refrain "I'm your bus" as they get caught up in this day in the life of adventure. The digitally produced illustrations of the dependable smiling buses give new appreciation to the ubiquitous behemoths. There are deft touches of humor like the endorsements on the back cover from the garbage truck, fire engine, police car, and family auto. This is a great read aloud for the first day of school or to read in preparation for a child's first ride on a school bus. Reviewer: Beverley Fahey

About the Author, Marilyn Singer

Marilyn Singer is the author of over 80 books for children in many genres, including poetry collections, nonfiction, mysteries, and novels. She has won several Children's Choice and Parents' Choice Awards, as well as a Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award Honor Book prize for Creature Carnival. Her picture book CITY LULLABYE was recently cited by Time magazine as one of the Top Ten Children's Books for 2007. She lives in Washington, Connecticut, and Brooklyn, New York, where there are many school buses in her neighborhood.

Evan Polenghi is the designer/illustrator for The Learning Maestros, a children’s music publishing company. Evan has also created designs for Gap Kids and Baby Gap. His illustrations have appeared in the Chicken Socks book EYE FIND, and have been part of many popular advertising campaigns, including print media for Toshiba and American Express. He lives in New York City.

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Editorials

Children's Literature - Beverley Fahey

Children's Literature - Mary Quattlebaum

Those nervous about their first bus ride will find a comforting companion in this cheery yellow vehicle. Youngsters are invited to travel to school "past the waving traffic cop" and "friendly tire shop" and picked up by this reliable caregiver at the end of the day. The titular refrain and dawn-to-bedtime story structure also prove reassuring. In the closing images, the anthropomorphized bus sleeps peacefully under a starlit sky and awakens at daybreak, ready for work, on the final wordless page. Marilyn Singer's bouncy rhymes and Evan Polenghi's stylized illustrations, with their bold lines and primary colors, earn an A+—the same grade the kids give their bus. Reviewer: Mary Quattlebaum

School Library Journal

Gr 1–3—Rhyming text in the first and third person relates the daylong job of the big yellow vehicles as they head out into traffic, pick up passengers, drop them at school, provide transportation for trips, and deliver children back home at day's end. The repeated phrase "I'm your bus" injects a personal touch, as does the integration of children's names into the rhyme. Polenghi's digital media illustrations have bold colors and strong black lines, and his jovial anthropomorphizing of the oft-unheralded school bus brings a friendly demeanor to the pages. While there may not be a heavy child demand for books about these vehicles, they are a daily presence in children's lives whether in cities, suburbs, small towns, or rural areas, and this picture book may lift appreciation of them.—Barbara Elleman, Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Amherst, MA

Kirkus Reviews

A cheery yellow school bus, grille grinning from headlight to headlight, introduces itself to the children it carries from home to school and back again in rhythmic, three-line stanzas: "Watch those backpacks coming through. / Have fun today. Learn something new. / Later I'll come back for you." Like any good bus, it works to remember the children's names, punctuating its narration with personal greetings and goodbyes. The verse form is just right for eager preschoolers to latch onto, and Polenghi's digital illustrations feature busy, colorful scenes with heavy, black outlines, the titular bus dominating every composition. As a first-day-of-school reassurance for newly minted kindergartners, for whom the school bus is an often anxiety-producing rite of passage, this one's top-notch. (Picture book. 4-6)