The Boy on the Bus

Dale has taken the nursery favourite, ‘The Wheels on the Bus’, as her starting point for this jaunty picture book. A small boy drives a single-decker, old-fashioned style bus with built-in roof rack, around the countryside. He stops to take on various farm animals until the vehicle is crammed to capacity with baaing sheep, mooing cows, a neighing horse, clucking chickens and bleating goats and still the wheels on the bus – somewhat surprisingly – keep going round and round all day long!

Though there’s not much of a storyline, there is plenty going on in the watercolour illustrations of the countryside and the animals’ antics. With its patterned, predictable structure and large clear print, this is a book worth putting in the way of children in the early stages of reading.