The Hundred Decker Bus by Mike Smith

The Hundred Decker Bus by Mike Smith
Buy The Hundred Decker Bus by Mike Smith at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: For Sharing
Reviewer: Ruth Ng
Summary: Transport fans will love this amazing, ridiculous bus! But there's plenty of humour and interesting things to see even if your usual book of choice is one about princesses or fairies!
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 32	Date: May 2013
Publisher: Macmillan Children's Books
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 978-0230754584
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Can you imagine if one day, you're on the bus to town and suddenly the driver decides to take a different road? Perhaps he carries on down this road, just to see where it might go. I know what I'd be doing, and it isn't sitting happily in my seat waiting to see where we end up! However, in fiction anything can happen and in this story, when the driver heads off on his own little jaunt, his passengers come along quite happily with him!

As the bus travels through the countryside it picks up more and more people, all of them happy to just go wherever, without any definite plans. The bus is soon full, but more passengers still want to board, so a new deck is added, and again, and again until, as the title reveals, there are one hundred decks! Contraptions are invented to help the bus under (over) bridges, and there's a castle in there, a windmill and a swimming pool! Of course, the poor double decker bus at the bottom begins to struggle to keep moving with all these extra decks until one day it splutters to a stop. What will everyone do now? Luckily someone else comes along, in a multi-deckered hot air balloon, ready and able to give the bus a 'lift'!

The illustrations make the story, of course, and you won't be disappointed. There's so much to see on every page. The pictures are colourful, with sweet little characters peppering each page. The star feature is, of course, the huge fold out page that details all one hundred decks of the bus! It's fabulous, there's so much to look at it would have kept us entertained for quite some time, but I'm afraid that I took off a star because there was a problem. For some reason the first fold, at the top edge of the book, is perforated. I'm not sure why you would want to remove that part since you'd lose the bottom picture which shows the bus, which is really what the whole book is about! After just one reading our fold out picture had already partially torn on both sides and I expect it won't be long before it detaches completely. It's such a shame because it's a lovely book, but for me if it's starting to fall apart after one read then there's a problem. Otherwise I would most certainly recommend it as a fun story with lots and lots to see on every page.

For more fold out picture delights try The Treasure of Captain Claw by Jonathan Emmett and Steve Cox or Sir Charlie Stinky Socks and the Really Frightful Night by Kristina Stephenson

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You can read more book reviews or buy The Hundred Decker Bus by Mike Smith at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy The Hundred Decker Bus by Mike Smith at Amazon.com.

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