Maisy Drives the Bus

Maisy

by Lucy Cousins

Maisy fans can climb aboard for the ride and find out who is waiting at each stop as Maisy drives the bus and visits each bus stop to pick up passengers.

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Transport, Fiction, Counting, Storytime, Buses

24 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2000

About the author

Lucy Cousins, BA Honours in Graphic Design from The Faculty of Arts and Architecture, Brighton Polytechnic, postgraduate degree from Royal College of Art, is an author-illustrator of children's books. She is best known for her books featuring Maisy Mouse but she has also published other children's books including one about Noah's Ark. She is a mother of four and lives in Hampshire, England. Her own children are the inspiration for her books whose age range is 2-8.

Reviews

[Brittany · Rating 4 out of 5]

This little book was fun as a read aloud to a group, because the kids can shout HELLO CYRIL (and all of the other animals) as they get on the bus.

[Gemma · Rating 4 out of 5]

My daughter chose this book from her school library because, in her words, 'I liked the book. I liked that there was a cat in it and the bus and the mouse person and her uniform that she is wearing.'

I think the illustrations are colourful, simple and appealing to young children. The illustrations also incorporate shapes and things that a young reader will recognise, eg heart shapes, squares, flowers, different animals and a rainbow.

The text's font is a 'fun' font, not the standard Times New Roman or Arial, which I feel encourages a young reader to join in. The font size is not intimidating and the number of words per page are suitable for a young reader.

The story itself includes a situation most children have found themselves in, waiting for a bus, sitting on a bus and stopping to pick people up. Young readers can relate to the story because of their own experiences on buses.

The book is set out in a sequence; someone is at bus stop number... and they get on the bus. Number sequence is a prominent theme in the book, there are five bus stops which are in sequence, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, helping young readers with counting in sequence. When everyone gets to bus stop number 5 they all get off, except Little Black Cat who is asleep, my daughter found this funny!

Overall, a good book which relates to children's experience with public transport. It could be useful for a KS1 class who are going to use public transport to travel to and from a school trip as most schools now regularly use buses and trains for local trips.

[Eiley Miles · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about Maisy driving a bus to multiple different stops to pick up her friends, but it's all in Spanish! She wonders who will be waiting at each stop, and she ends up picking up her friend, Flor, a black cat, her friend, Tula, and her friend, Pepo. When she gets to Pepo's stop she wonders if he will be able to fit on the bus, since he is an elephant, but sure enough, everyone fits! At stop number 5, it's time for everyone to get off, and we say "Adiós" to Maisy and her friends!

I absolutely loved this book. I grew up with Maisy, so it was sweet to get to spend time with her again. My favorite part about this book, though, is that it is all in Spanish. I had to look up a couple words for their meaning, but overall I was able to read this book fairly easily, since it was very simply Spanish. I love getting to practice my Spanish, so this book was a great opportunity for that.

I would greatly enjoy having this book in my classroom. It is very simple Spanish, and it is a fairly easy read. I assume most of my students will not know Spanish, so I would expect to read this book during a read-aloud, but it would also be a good book for students to practice Spanish on their own too, if that was an option. I believe it is very important for young children to have exposure to different languages and cultures, so this book would be a great chance for them to learn.

[Fernanda Tala · Rating 5 out of 5]

Es un libro que posee muchos colores, diversos animales que en la vida real es muy difícil que conecten de la manera que lo hacen en este cuento. Es un cuento de calidad, primero por los colores que utiliza, ya que, son colores con los que los niños de 2 años ya están más familiarizados, además contiene texto simple, que parece que no fue impreso, también es didáctico para los niños. Además el cuento genera curiosidad en los niños, ya que va en secuencia y hace la pregunta de quien será el siguiente en subir al bus.
Javiera Hadad y Fernanda Tala.

[Lauren Baker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I chose this book to read because it was my favorite book to read when I was younger. I always liked the simplicity of the illustrations. Though it is for reading aloud to young readers, I think this book would be a good choice for a child to read when they are learning to read themselves. It's overall a simple book and one of my favorites!

[J.P. Sirro · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book about Maisy driving through down stopping at bus stops and picking up her friends as she goes. The sequential ordered bus stops allow our son to enjoy the anticipation of whats next. Also really enjoys the cat staying on the bus and needing to be woken up.

Illistrates are very well done and appeasing to the eye!

[Kerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Collecting for my niece. This one is a good decent story of the day Maisy drives the bus and picks up her friends along the way. Decent read for kids and shows them what a bus is and what the driver does.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is short and sweet. Illustrations are not my favorite, probably better suited for the 2-3 crowd than the 4-5 crowd but that’s what my son chose from the library. Overall, 3/5 stars ⭐️ would recommend.

[✟Roxanne✟(Death by Book Avalanche) ☠ · Rating 4 out of 5]

My daughter just loves Maisy at the moment. She also loves buses so this book is a winner.

[Lindsay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute and quick, my son was able to read it independently.

[Leigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

The latest edition to our Maisy collection. This one utilizes the cast of characters better and there is some basic counting and memorization. Love this one!

[Little Champs]

2925

[Kelly Chester · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book

[Haaley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a simple favorite in my classroom. We read it often as a group.

[Lorraine Cork · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book for small pre-school children. It is a very simple little story with beautiful pictures. I bought it for me bilingual child who speaks English and Italian and she really enjoyed it.

[Theo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this one was pretty boring but T wanted me to read it 4 times in a row so he obviously liked it :-)

[Cathy | A Case Full of Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

My two-year-old has recently become obsessed with Maisy books, and this is her favorite one. She loves guessing who will be at each bus stop and waving hello to them.

[Neko · Rating 3 out of 5]

I worked with a child who LOVED this particular Maisy story...I don't know HOW many times I read it but I'm happy to never read the story again (if that happens). The first 20 or so times I didn't mind reading it as I found different ways to interact with the book and the child listening to the story seemed to enjoy what I did but yeah after that I slowly started to 'hide' the book to show other interesting books or different Maisy books were available to read (which worked).

So, bright and colourful, big bold text..Maisy amazingly has her drivers license and is picking up different friends along the way..All of the stops are numbered from 1 and up..So, yes, you can get your child to count along with you. Or you could read part of the story counting backwards.

I guess this could be an introduction to people catching a bus to get from point A to point B and the fact that other people you don't know will catch the bus..Except in this case it's pretty much all of Maisy's friends.

Children under 5 should enjoy this story.

[Janice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good for toddler through beginning readers

Love the Maisy books. Bright colors and bold drawings keep the eye of the young child. The words are simple, but tell a story.

These books are good for read aloud to little ones, and then those same little ones can use them as easy readers because the pictures also tell the story.

Love the fact that Cousins uses the comma properly in nouns of direct address!!

[Brandie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading with grandbabies is super fun! Especially when her name is Maisy!

[Vicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who doesn't love Maisy? I don't think I've come across a book about her that I didn't like. This a great book, very simple that includes counting up to five. With the different (English) names for Maisy's friends, it also provides opportunities for new vocabulary. If you use this for a storytime, it's easy to pair with the song "The Wheels on the Bus"!

[jacky · Rating 3 out of 5]

This wasn't my favorite Maisy book because the subject wasn't as fun as some of the others. I liked that different characters were picked up at each stop, and that the stops were numbered makes it a bit of a counting book. It would be more fun for us if we used the bus.

[Morgan Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a simple little book for young readers to pick up and read. The colors and artwork are very primary which gives it a simple tone that would not overwhelm, say, a Kindergartener who is learning to read.

[Terry]

Of the Maisy books in our collection, this one is probably the most tedious to read.

[Tiffany]

This is a simple story of animals boarding a bus one at a time. And you guess who comes next.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a very simple book perfect for preschool-age children. It's bright colored illustrations even captured the attention of my 5-month-old baby :)

[Jamie Addison · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book also teaches counting.

[J L's Bibliomania · Rating 5 out of 5]

1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up recommends Maisy Goes to Playschool, but the Maisy book we found first (and the favorite of my toddler boys) was Maisy Drives the Bus

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Has so much staying power. Seriously, I have read this hundreds of times to both my kids and all of us still enjoy it.

[Megan Gery · Rating 1 out of 5]

Meh. Maisy annoys me.