The Seals on the Bus

by Lenny Hort, G. Brian Karas (Illustrator)

Overview

This hilarious new version of the beloved children's song "The Wheels on the Bus" will have young readers errping and roaring and honking along.

"The seals on the bus go "errp, errp, errp"

All through the town."

Two children and their parents board a city bus on their way to a party. At the next stop, who should get on but a group of seals, who holler "errp, errp, errp" at the top of their lungs. Each time the bus stops a new kind of animal joins the passengers and adds to the din, to the children's delight and the parents' annoyance. But when several hissing skunks want to come aboard, even the children cry "help! help! help!"

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780805059526
Publisher:	Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Publication date:	04/01/2000
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	8.10(w) x 10.37(h) x 0.35(d)
Age Range:	2 - 5 Years

About the Author

Lenny Hort is a noted bus rider and the author of such books as How Many Stars in the Sky (a Reading Rainbow review selection) and Tie Your Socks and Clap Your Feet, a collection of his own mixed-up poems. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, Laaren Brown, and their daughters, Sophie, Irene, and Phoebe.

G. Brian Karas has illustrated more than fifty books for children, including Cinder-Elly, Good Knight, My Crayons Talk, and Truman's Aunt Farm. Mr. Karas has also written several books, including The Windy Day. He lives with his family in upstate New York.

Editorial Reviews

This picture book needs only one thing: a group of children to sing along.” —Booklist

“What happened to the wheels? Clearly, the animals have taken over a favorite preschool song...Don't miss the ride.” —The Horn Book, starred review

“A loud and happy road trip.” —The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

From the Publisher

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 Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

School Library Journal

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)

Kirkus Reviews