Nuestro Autobus/The Bus for Us Book

The Bus for Us is a book about a little girl, who appears to be with her older brother and has never ridden the school bus before. She asks as each vehicle passes by, "Is this the bus for us, Gus?" and the boy responds with "No, Tess. This is a," fill-in-the-blank. The book goes on like this for several pages and eventually ends with the obvious "Yes, Tess. This is the bus for us. Let's go!" But the book is anything except obvious. While the adults key in on the dialogue of the book, the reading portion, which is very simple, they miss the second story, a wordless story, happening in the illustrations. The illustrations start of with Tess and Gus, who had arrived to the bus stop before any of the other children had. Already, those noticing the illustrations might have caught that Tess and Gus don't look like average siblings (and maybe they're not). Tess looks like she may be from Asian descent and Gus looks to have an African American lineage (or maybe that's just me). On the next page, along comes a girl who appears to be Irish, also waiting for the bus. She holds on to her lunch bag and waits, patiently for two pages. Next, arrives a girl who appears to have yet another cultural background, Muslim. A dog follows her to the bus stop, and the girl who appears to be Irish hands the dog a sandwich. Next to arrive is a boy with a box, which turns out to be holding a turtle, meanwhile the dog has completely devoured the Irish girl's lunch, while a cat lingers in the background. Another boy arrives, a friend of the turtle bringer, reading a book, and the students play with the turtle, letting him out of the box as the cat creeps up on the dog. The turtle bringer gets distracted, high-fiving his friend, the book reader, leaving the turtle unsupervised, while the cat gets scared, seeing how the dog has noticed its presence. The turtle gets out of the box, and the dog chases the cat as two girls watch in horror. The turtle inches towards the Irish girl's lunch bag as the dog runs away and another girl, a music player, arrives with her band instrument and cowboy boots. The turtle enters the Irish girl's lunch bag as another girl with glasses arrives. The Irish girl hands the turtle bringer his turtle in her lunch bag, which he puts back in his box, while another boy arrives and starts signing to the music player girl. The students line up the last time Tess asks her famous question, while Gus, exhausted, has lost all hope, but this time, the bus actually does arrive, and Gus couldn't have been happier. One after one, the kids pile on in as one final boy arrives. And by the way, until the bus arrived, all of this happened without Tess and Gus's knowledge, as the two were too distracted with their dialogue.
In case you were wondering, eight students arrived after Tess and Gus, all with their unique, diverse trait, whether it be Irish, Muslim, turtle-friendly, book reader, music player, wears glasses, deaf, or the late-comer, every human on this planet is different in some way, and I love that Bloom, author and illustrator of the book, captured that neutrally, without any option of opinion or negative connotation. Next, I love how the author wanted a wordless story to take place, secretly, for the children, who are more likely to be studying the pictures, while the adults, who otherwise, would have thought this book is repetitive and has been done before, paid more attention to the story the words told. I don't have any critiques. I actually found the book to have a certain charm, and this is definitely a book I will be adding to my "will be reading aloud" shelf for my students.