Bus-a-Saurus Bop

Come and meet the silliest school bus that ever hit the streets...

With wild Miss Hopper at the wheel, the Tardee Twins running late, and a school bus that belches louder than a brontosaurus, it's no wonder that Norman seems like the most NORMAL guy around. Jump on board and come for a ride!

Awards

Bus-a-Saurus Bop has been named a 2004 Children's Choice by the Children's Book Council! These titles are chosen annually by about 10,000 children from schools all over the country. The award is co-sponsored by the CBC and the IRA (International Reading Association).

Classroom Materials

Bus-a-Saurus Bop is an Accelerated Reader Book! -- Quiz # 82912

Bus-A-Saurus Bop Activity Guide (PDF)

Review

Children's Literature - Beverley Fahey

Somewhere in a wacky town in some alien universe the Bus-a-Saurus, a cross between a dinosaur and a school bus, gobbles up the kids at the start of the school day and spews them back out at days end. Zany, zippy, rhyming text, that must be read aloud to appreciate the cadence, is filled with tongue-twisting syllables and hilarious imagery. Kids will readily join in the refrain and bellow out "C-R-E-E-E-K cringing' as he stops, S-Q-U-E-E-E-K unhingin' his chops." Wild, garish cartoons of the Bus-a-Saurus with its bulging eyes, reptilian tongue and cavernous gullet and the bug-eyed children with their odd shaped heads all add to the fun. It's bizarre, it's off -beat and it may not appeal to everyone, but any kid who has ever ridden a school bus will howl with delight and be-bop on his next bus ride.

2003, Bloomsbury Childrens Books, Ages 5 to 10.

The Story Behind the Story: How Bus-A-Saurus Bop Became a Book

It all started when my daughter, Jennifer, was 2 years old. She had gone to the doctor one day and had to get a shot. She was a good little girl and the doctor gave her a sticker.

That night I let her crawl in bed with me, and I told her a bedtime story about a little girl who had to got to the doctor to get a shot, etc., and the doctor gave her a sticker. (Like I tell the kids, "write what you know!") But in my story, the little girl got the sticker stuck on her tongue. Well, my daughter thought it was the funniest thing she had ever heard. Of course, I was talking like Sylvester the Cat most of the time, with my tongue between my teeth.

But, I thought, if my daughter likes it I'm sure the whole world will, and besides how hard can it be to write a picture book, they're 32 pages and for 4-8 year olds? So the next morning I got up and started writing "Sthicker Tongue-Tied." (I wrote it in rhyme because I loved reading rhyming picture books to Jenn.)

But I didn't know how to get my story published. So I went down to the library and asked the librarian, because as you know, librarians know everything!) She gave me a book filled with the addresses of all the publishing houses in the U.S. and told me to send my story off to them. Well, that sounded like a piece of cake, so to increase my chances I made 50 copies of "Sthicker Tongue-Tied" and within a year I received all form rejections from every single house.