cover image The Wheels on the Bus: A Read-Aloud Sing-along Trip to the Zoo

The Wheels on the Bus: A Read-Aloud Sing-along Trip to the Zoo

Jeanne Willis, illus. by Adam Stower. Barron’s, $10.99 (24p) ISBN 978-0-7641-6491-0

The wheels on the bus typically go round and round “all day long,” but in this rowdy version of the children’s song they do so “at the zoo,” as animals board an old-fashioned blue bus for their morning commute. Willis doesn’t bother much with traditional animal noises for sound effects as she moves from occupant to occupant: a warthog goes “snort snort sneeze” into its polka-dotted handkerchief, the hippos “squish squash squeeze” into the back row, and a meerkat goes “slip slip slide” into a tiger after a blown tire sends the bus careening. Stower’s cartoons create a raucous chaos that’s well-matched to this noisy retelling. Ages 2–5. (June)