Red Car, Red Bus (review)

The Number 17 bus pulls up to its stop. People get on. People get off. The bus heads to the next stop. People get on. People get off. If you're looking for more plot than that, too bad. But if you love to people watch, trailing the Number 17 is right where you'll want to be. From the opening to the closing endpapers, viewers observe from an across-the-street vantage point the passengers as they queue up for their ride into town. Not everybody will make it on time to the big red Number 17. One mother and child in particular keep just missing it, but fortunately there's a friendly little red car coming right behind whose driver retrieves the little boy's dropped teddy bear and offers the exhausted pair a lift into town. As the bus nears the town center, the buildings get more crowded and the traffic gets heavier—and more colorful: "Orange truck, orange van, yellow van, yellow car, red car, red bus." A passing shower sends umbrellas up and folks scurrying, and the Number 17 heads out of town, followed by its route buddy, the 17A (red, of course). The cut-paper illustrations are marvelously detailed, right down to the teeny address numbers, which kids can count (odds only) by twos. Emergent readers will also appreciate the repetition and cumulative predictability of the lengthening line of colored vehicles that head bumper to bumper through the town center. Get out the Matchbox™ cars for an imaginative reenactment.