My Bus – written and illustrated by Byron Barton
Greenwillow Books, 2015
The Three Bears – written and illustrated by Byron Barton
HarperFestival, 1997 (originally published by Greenwillow, 1991)
Byron Barton’s wonderful body of work, including board books, for the youngest readers, illustrates the value of simplicity. He will be greatly missed. In his long career, he showed readers the importance of respect for children’s imagination, intuition about how they perceive the world, and unpretentious images and text. It’s impossible to select the best of his rich and varied contributions to children’s literature, but here are two places to begin.
“I am Joe,” My Bus begins. “This is my car. This is my bus.” There you have all the information needed to understand the story, which centers on counting animals who board different vehicles, but is also about the familiarity of a friendly character. In bright, geometric images carefully placed in a community, readers follow Joe and his bus as they pick up a number of dogs and cats, and then deliver the animals to a plane, boat, and train. Where are they all going? We don‘t know, because their destination matters less than their trip and means of transportation, always fascinating to children. When Joe arrives home, one dog disembarks with him. Wherever the other animals are headed, it’s reassuring to know that Joe has a dog and that they arrive home safely. Two cats sit by a quiet bus resting under the moon. They may not belong to anyone, but they’re keeping the bus company.
There are an inexhaustible number of versions of The Three Bears. An author needs to justify each new one. Barton’s starts out “Once upon a time there were three bears,” not disappointing any reader. The cover shows the bear family and their house in the background. The opening pages change the perspective because, in spite of the sentence, there are no bears in the picture. The house is surrounded by trees too numerous to count, each one a green circle on a small red trunk, accompanied by flowers on the ground. Mama Bear’s kitchen as a brick stove, and three bowls of porridge sit on a deep green table. Again, the subsequent picture shift perspective, with the three bowls viewed through the window of the house. An economic text highlights each event of the story, which has its own moment to settle in the reader’s mind.
Along comes Goldilocks, sampling porridge, breaking the little chair, and settling in for nap with her shoes neatly placed at the side of the bed. When the bears return, they could not look less threatening, but children hear them exclaim their surprise at the unsettled condition of their home. No harm is done, but Goldilocks is definitely scared. She runs away and will never return. The house reappears with the same trees, this time snugly set in their center instead of placed in the corner of a two-page spread. Home is what matters. There are many other books about the bears to share with children, but Byron Barton’s sets them securely on the path to appreciating them when they are ready. His work is inimitable.
Imaginary Elevators 