Review by Booklist Review
Ages 4^-6. Children old enough to know the song "The Wheels on the Bus" will enjoy Hort's parody featuring a series of wild animals who, improbably, find their way onto a city bus. Two children and their parents board a bus driven by a tiger. As they ride along, they observe the mounting frenzy as the bus gradually fills with groups of seals, geese, rabbits, monkeys, vipers, sheep, and skunks, each making an appropriate sound or motion. Soon after the "skunks on the bus go sssss, sssss, sssss," the "people on the bus go HELP, HELP, HELP!" and it's time for everyone to disembark for the party at the end of the line. Karas' artwork combines cut paper, gouache, acrylic, and pencil to create a series of pleasingly varied scenes of cheerful chaos. A good story hour choice, this picture book needs only one thing: a group of children to sing along. A witty new version of an old favorite. --Carolyn Phelan
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-In this send-up of the traditional activity song, an unsuspecting family of four is joined by seven successive sets of animals (seals, geese, rabbits, monkeys, vipers, sheep, and skunks) on their bus ride to a local fair. So instead of swishing with the wipers or beeping with the horn, children "hiss" with the vipers and "honk" with the geese, and the bus driver, who happens to be a tiger, goes "ROAR, ROAR, ROAR." Karas's mixed-media cartoon collages wonderfully convey Hort's hyperbole. Kids will love adding these zoological lyrics to the ever-expanding onomatopoeia of "The Wheels on the Bus."-John Sigwald, Unger Memorial Library, Plainview, TX (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
(Preschool, Primary) ""The seals on the bus go / errp, errp, errp, / All around the town."" What happened to the wheels? Clearly, the animals have taken over a favorite preschool song in this wild bus ride. The mayhem rises as a different animal boards at each stop-the geese go ""honk, honk, honk""; the monkeys go ""eeeeh, eeeeh, eeeeh""; the rabbits, naturally, go ""up and down."" A scowling though hardly fearsome tiger driver attempts to restore order with a ""roar, roar, roar""-but without success. Completely successful is the match-up of text and art, with the silly but symmetrical variant of the song playing it straight to Karas's haywire illustrations. An open invitation to the ""Big Party"" posted right on the bus stop sign is apparently all-species inclusive, and the interaction between animal and human passengers (two children and two adults) is pure jubilation. The children ""errp"" with the seals and ""roar"" along with both tiger and parents. Most merry are the round woolly balls that Karas presents as sheep; the children, only one-third their size, attach themselves to these giant pillows with total contentment. The arrival of the skunks (""sssss, sssss, sssss"") has all the other passengers gasping at the windows-""and the people on the bus go 'help, help, help!'"" as they spill out the door at their final destination. Party hats, pizza, and popcorn promise even more fun to come, but the real celebration here begins the moment the book is opened. Don't miss the ride. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
With a tiger at the wheel, the big purple bus rolls all over town, picking up a menagerie of passengers from sheep ("BAAAH, BAAAH, BAAAH") to vipers--get it? -- ("HISS, HISS, HISS") to skunks ("SSSS, SSSS, SSSS") before disgorging its dismayed human riders ("HELP! HELP! HELP!") at an outdoor party. Though wild creatures waddle, tramp, or slither aboard by troops there's always room for more in Karas's (Raising Sweetness, 1999, etc.) gleeful paint-and-paper collage scenes. The scene on the bus is bound to provoke a great reaction and reading (or honking) along is inevitable. It's a frolicsome spin on the familiar play rhyme, and a surefire alternative or follow-up to Maryann Kovalski's Wheels on the Bus (1987) or Paul Zelinsky's classic popup version (1990). Hop onboard. (Picture book. 5-7) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
