THE YELLOW BUS

THE YELLOW BUS by Loren Long

Even if you homeschool, don't pass over this super sweet book, The Yellow Bus. OHIO author and illustrator, Loren Long, does start with the traditional job of the school bus, to carry children to the local school, but then the book moves past that job. We see the bus become a refuge for homeless folks, a house for goats, and more. Each job that the bus does brings her joy. All of this was created in the mind of Long from running along a bike path close to his home and daily passing an abandoned bus in someone's backyard. The bus had become a goat shelter. He found himself wondering about the old bus, and what she had seen. He says in his end notes that, " All of this got me thinking about purpose, and the passage of time, about how we feel when we do things for others."

I would be very remiss if I didn't talk for a moment about Long's fantastic artwork. Primarily done in black and white with pencil and charcoal, Long's small amount of color additions are mainly in the yellow family. The yellow bus is easy to spot in the haze of life around her. She is sunny and joyful, willing to do her job and give her all to the task before her.

You won't want to miss Long's extensive notes at the end of the book. He shares more details about how his idea of The Yellow Bus came to be. Then he talks about the process he went through to do the artwork. He built an amazing 3-D model of a town and the bus. From these he made his sketches. The pictures are super fun to see!