A bus called Heaven by Bob Graham
Walker Books, 2011. ISBN 1 4063 3419 7
(Ages 5+) Highly recommended. Picture book. Finding a bus called
Heaven left in their street is the impetus for many of the
neighbourhood to come together to make it into a community centre.
People who have rarely spoken, club together to clean it out and add
carpets, games and furniture for all to use. Boys found using spray
cans on the bus at night are invited back the next day to paint the
bus. One family shows their slides while others set up market stalls
in the busy street nearby. All is cooperative and neighbourly until
one day a council worker comes long with his tow truck and takes the
bus away to a place where it will be recycled.
The community is distraught, but one young girl, Stella, points out
the baby birds about to hatch in a nest in the engine, and
challenges the council worker to a game of table football.
With another story of people taking matters into their own hands,
Bob Graham masterly lets us think this is a simple story, but it is
much more. There are overlays of city life, of the mix of cultures
in cities, living side by side. There are hints of loneliness and
isolation, of communities coming together, of people taking action
where they see a wrong, of idealism and hope for the future. Bob
Graham's books make me smile, sometimes even laugh out loud, but
always make me hold a thought about the future of our world being
safe in the hands of children.
And of course, his recognisable illustrations give a marvellous
recreation of a city with its telegraph lines and endless traffic,
with isolated pockets of people living in small houses sandwiched
between factories and office towers. The strong colours of the
people and the bus stand out against the grey blue wash of the
buildings that surround their lives.
Never didactic or preachy, Bob Graham's stories revolve around the
ordinary, the everyday. The people who inhabit his stories are
instantly recognised by the reader as most like themselves, going
about their lives as best they can.
Fran Knight