It's Not a School Bus, It's a Pirate Ship

June 1, 2020
Rapkin and Martinez build on the imaginative fun of It's Not a Bed, It's a Time Machine (2019) with this romp on a pirate ship that looks suspiciously like a school bus. A cowering child in a red-and-white-striped shirt clutches a stuffed parrot as the school bus approaches. Mom says, "Don't be scared. You're the Master of Mornings. The Captain of Cool!" A blue-toned interior shot of the bus shows the imaginary horrors the child envisions seated on the bus, all rendered in a childlike style: a pelican, a shark, a ghost, a skeleton. But everything changes when the driver announces it's a pirate ship, not a bus. The pint-sized buccaneer, who has pale skin and wavy brown hair, quickly makes a friend in Zenzi, a brown-skinned girl with curls in a topknot. The two exchange jokes, sing pirate songs, and apply sticker tattoos as the riders around them improvise their own pirate gear, including a scribbled paper beard, a hook hand, and an eye patch. The protagonist's nerves come back when they land at school, but with Zenzi, they can face anything. Martinez's whimsical flights of fancy fill the illustrations to bursting. Some of what the children see seems based on reality--mermaids exercising with headphones--while others are more difficult to parse, opening the reading up to a dialogue. Pair with Kindergarrrten Bus (2018) by Mike Ornstein and illustrated by Kevin M. Barry. Imagination conquers fear yet again. Arrgh! (Picture book. 4-7)

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June 15, 2020
The dedication to this team’s buoyant follow-up to It’s Not a Bed, It’s a Time Machine speaks volumes: “For anyone who sat alone on the school bus.” Whether readers have or haven’t, they will eagerly climb aboard this playfully out-of-the-ordinary ride, along with a reluctant boy embarking on his first day of school. Instead of an empty seat, the boy finds a genial captain at the wheel and a merry band of swashbuckling kids, and his shivers disappear as he joins his crewmates for a “scallywag sing-a-long” and pirate joke-telling, wondering, “Why was I so scared? We’re all in the same boat!” Martinez’s digital art gives the bus a highly imaginative seafaring transformation and fills the ocean with waggish aquatic creatures, including a taco-eating dolphin, penguins sailing an iceberg, and flamingos sporting backpacks. On dry land, the teacher welcomes her students and invites them to take a seat on what appears to be an ordinary rug—but is it really? Ages 3–6.