A great fun book! My 3 and half year old loves, loves, LOVES this book. He read it in his pre-school and was so besotted we got him his own copy. He also has a London bus - which now mimics the story! As a child care practitioner myself, it's a great educational book to encourage creative play and help your child's imagination. Very impressed. AMAZON | March 2019
Five Stars My son loves this book its his favourite. Wish there were more books like this. AMAZON | July 2018
Great book for little imaginations My 2 year old loves this book- he excitedly tells the story to himself as he turns the pages! It has really captured his imagination- maybe because the pictures are real and something he can relate to. We’ve set up a few of the scenes at home with our toys and he uses his own red bus to tell the story. AMAZON | June 2018
Fabulous book I am a year 1 teacher. Fabulous book that 5-6 years olds loved and had a lot of imaginative play after it. M Barlow | Feb 2014
Inspired our 4 year old My 4 year old boy absolutely adores this story and spends much of his time on expeditions to hunt for the naughty bus. Iand | July 2013
Naughty Bus Wonderful One of the best books I have ever used with my Year 1 class - they were absolutely entralled. It inspired the children to take their own photos of their naughty bus adventures and add their own text; playing with words just as Jan Oke had. C Partridge | Jan 2013
Enjoyable and educational! We had used this book at school in Family literacy sessions. The children loved the story and have done some wonderful activities based on it. The text is so imaginative and provides excellent opportunities to help your child understand some basic literacy skills. A Jones | Jan 2010
Addictive for parent and child alike This is a very exciting book for reading out loud to toddlers, and also a brilliant book for getting 3-5 year olds interested in reading, because of all the clever games it plays with the typography. My son and I have read it together again and again, and it never gets dull. P Heal | Mar 2009
A hit with my class! This imaginative journey is beautifully illustrated. My class of 4/5 year olds love this book. Both the boys and girls have pleaded to read it again and again... and again. Tallulah | Jan 2009
Naughty Bus has become an instant hit with children and adults alike. The author’s playful prose is as quirky and captivating as her husband Jerry’s outstanding photography of familiar childhood objects. Naughty Bus is very much a family affair. Which may explain why the amusing expedition of a mischievous London bus will evoke within many childhood memories. SW11 Literary Festival Programme | Sept 2006
This story of a boy and his toy bus offers a combination of visual and textual devices that will capture the interest of most young readers. Children need to discover what reading is good for, what it means to them as individuals and to see it as an inherently pleasurable activity….This story of a boy and his toy bus offers a combination of visual and textual devices that will capture the interest of most young readers. The story is told through photographs that represent familiar situations in unfamiliar ways, through a challenging array of viewpoints. The voice of the narrator changes throughout, offering further opportunities for meaning making. Interrogation of the text by the reader is an integral part of experiencing this book, and would undoubtedly encourage children to return to it many times. …Naughty Bus also shows that a story can be told in a variety of ways, and that there is always more than one side to a story. ‘Early Years Reading: the Power of the Picture Book’ by Helen Bromley. Books for Keeps Magazine | May 2005
Naughty Bus is a marvellous book… Naughty Bus has big coloured photos and a short text which follow a boy’s mischievous games with his new toy bus. It might appear simple, but it’s actually very clever. Apart from a few adult interruptions, the words are ‘spoken’ by the bus, (imagined by the boy, of course), and the photos show what is happening. So when you read the words and pictures together, you completely enter into his game. And it’s such fun. My favourite spread reads: “I have an IMPORTANT job to do. I must take my passengers where they want to go.” The photo shows the bus splashing through a plate of egg, beans and chips!
The design of the text is fun too. The words for a bumpy road are indeed bumpy, and as the bus falls in the pond, the words go splash! Buy this book; share it with lots of children and discuss it for hours. ‘Top Choice’ Child Education Magazine, reviewer Jessica Souhami | May 2005
Even the typography plays tricks! Naughty Bus by Jan and Jerry Oke. Here, even the typography plays tricks, mirroring the bus’s actions and finally sinking into the page as the errant toy speeds past a queue of disgruntled plastic passengers, ploughs through its owner’s dinner and plunges into the garden pond. Its witty use of photography adds to the story’s charms and makes you realise how unadventurous other picture books can be. It looks momentarily as though the last page may disappoint. Is that a bed hoving into view? But there’s a point to this tale’s end in darkness. “Sometimes,” you see, “I’m a night bus.” The Independent on Sunday | Nov 2004