If A Bus Could Talk

Title: If A Bus Could Talk
Author and Illustrator: Faith Ringgold
Publisher and date of Publication: Scholastic Inc., 1999
Genre: Biography, Picture Book
Age Range: K-4th grade

Summary: This story starts with a young girl waiting on the bus for school. When it gets there, she notices it doesn't look like her usual bus. Then it starts talking. It tells her the whole story of Rosa Parks and the girl finds out that the bus is the actual bus that Rosa rode on. By the time the girl gets to school, she knows everything about Rosa Parks.

Response: I think this book is wonderful to read to young children that don't know anything about Rosa Park or anyone in the civil rights movement. I learned so much from reading this book and because it is a picture book, young children will be able to hold their attention more. Children will also like that the bus talks. They will learn alot and not even realize it because they are amazed that the bus is telling them all of the information. It also starts with a little girl getting on the bus. Most children have rode the bus to or from school so they would be able to identify with it. The illustrations are also so bright and colorful children will love them. I would love to read this book to my class one day to introduce people that have changed the world. You could also read this to older children because it has so much good and useful information.

Teaching Ideas: The ideas are endless with this book. It would be wonderful to read at the beginning of the civil rights unit. Since Scholastic published this book, their website, scholastic.com, has lesson plans for it. You could have older children write a biography of themselves from the point-of-view of the bus or another form of transportaion. You could also make
the classroom into a "bus" and pretend someone is the bus driver and tell
everyone about Rosa Parks or anyone you are studying in class.