Joy comes in many forms in The Yellow Bus by Loren Long. We see the new yellow school bus carrying children from home to school. “And they filled her with joy.” Then, the bus has a new life driving older riders to the library and to country parks. They, too, “filled her with joy.” The illustrations show the sunshine yellow of the bus and everything in and around the bus drenched in color. Beyond these bright colors, the rest of the page is muted and in greyscale. This makes the yellow bus always pop off the page. The bus takes on new roles as a place for unhoused people to sleep overnight and, later, a spot for goats to climb on in the country. It is only when she is empty and forgotten does she go dark and silent. Readers ride the emotions of happiness and sadness as the bus journeys along. Her final stage is underwater and surrounded by colorful fish. “They swam in. Swish-swoosh, swim-swoosh, glub, glub-swoosh. . . And they filled her with joy.” Long does a masterful job offering this simple, yet very poignant, portrait of a bus.
For other books illustrated by Loren Long, look for Otis, Otis and the Kittens, and Little Tree.