Long before illustrator G. Brian Karas captured the world's attention with his not-particularly-groundbreaking-but-still-interesting, "Muncha Muncha Muncha" he helped author Lenny Hort create a sweet little selection entitled, "The Seals On the Bus". Taking silliness to a whole new level, "Seals" replaces those tired old standby lines found in the song, "The Wheels On the Bus" and replaces them with a convoluted carnival of copious critters. It's silly, frenetic, and thoroughly enjoyable to the kiddies.
A small family of four wait patiently at a bus stop. The kids are unencumbered and their parents read their book and newspaper respectively. Once on the bus, however, everything goes higgledy-piggledy. First some seals come on board (accompanied by the text, "The seals on the bus go errp, errp, errp"). I've always thought that seals were prone to more arfing than errping, but that's just me I guess. Suddenly the seals' boisterous errps make the driver more than a little angry. The driver, to the surprise of his human passengers, is actually a tiger. So the text says, "The tiger on the bus goes roar, roar, roar". This is where things start picking up. Geese jump aboard the bus, with the appropriate geese sounds in tow. Next come rabbits. Then monkeys, then vipers, then sheep. In a way, it's the final skunks that push the grownups completely off the deep end. Fortunately, at this point the bus as ended at a fabulous party and the kids are more than happy to join in the fun.
Lenny Hort is the official author of this tale, and it's a funny enough concept I'll grant you. Still, it's Karas who brings the entire enterprise to full glorious life. I wasn't a particular fan of his work on "Muncha Muncha Muncha", I'll admit. Maybe that was because he didn't include any seals. Cause let's face it, the man is an excellent seal-artist. The book itself has a kind of faux sloppiness to it. At first, it looks like the pictures were just randomly brought together. But on closer inspection it's clear that Karas uses his gouache, acrylics, pencils and cut paper to the best of his ability. I was particularly interested in how the buildings and reading materials in this story were created out of real honest-to-goodness newsprint. Partly these amused me because Karas would carefully smudge important names on that newsprint. Partly they amused me because they were often ads of boring grown-up business/stock information (apropos when using that same material to create houses and buildings). As for the characters themselves, Karas is far better at drawing animals than people. In "Muncha" this was a problem. Here, it's an advantage. You may notice the family from time to time, but the real heroes of this tale are the myriad of different animals filling each and every page. And great seals. Great great seals.
All in all, "The Seals On the Bus" takes an old song, modernizes it with silly and ridiculous images, and has a great time doing it. Consequently, your kids will have a ball reading it. And if you happen to be the kind of adult that can repeat the words, "Errp, errp, errp", over and over with the right amount of aplomb and humor, this will become your children's favorite bedtime story of the year. Definitely consider checking it out.
