A Bus Called Heaven by Bob Graham (Candlewick Press, 2011) is a story of a community coming together over a junkyard bus, a bus labeled “Heaven” and left on the street. Young Stella, a somewhat mysterious girl whom we don’t know much about, adopts the bus and, with the rest of her community, they make the rundown bus into a home-like gathering place with the neighborhood’s used and unmatched dishes, furniture, and so forth. The bus became a place to play table soccer with friends, to sit and chat, and to hear about a neighbor’s vacation.
The illustrations emphasize the joyful position of the bus: using both ink and watercolor, the bus becomes bright and colorful, while the rest of the city and the dump where the bus is to be sent is washed out and dull. My even wondered aloud why part of the book was “black and white.” We talked about how the bus brought color into their life in a symbolic way.
While I was not fascinated by the story, it was certainly well done. I liked how the seemingly sullen Stella (mostly because she was somewhat “washed out”) was the star of the story, from her influence in the neighborhood at the beginning to the rescuing of the bus from the junkyard.
Kid’s thoughts: We found this book months ago, and when he saw it on the Cybils list, he was excited to find it again and revisit it. He enjoys reading it very much.
Nominations for the Cybils are open! As a first-round panelist, I get to read all the nominated fiction picture books, those published between October 16, 2011 and October 15, 2012. My son (turning 5 tomorrow!) and I enjoy watching nominations come in, and we’re always excited when we see a book we’ve already enjoyed show up on the list! Some he’s really excited to read because the title is so interesting or the cover illustrations are intriguing. We read this book earlier in the year but didn’t have a chance to post about it then.
