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'A broken, old bus appears one morning, sad as a whale on a beach, right outside Stella's house. On the front of it, held up with packing tape, is a hand painted sign... "Heaven".
'For Stella, this decrepit old vehicle is special -this bus is "ours" - a place for everyone to be together: hold meetings, play games and share stories. But one day, the bus is towed away and Stella must fight to save not just the bus, but everything the community has worked so hard to create.' (From the publisher's website.)
Notes
-
This is affiliated with Dr Laurel Cohn's Picture Book Diet because it contains representations of food and/or food practices.
Food depiction - Incidental
Food types - Everyday foods
- Everyday drinks
- Discretionary foods
- Discretionary drinks
- High sugar foods
- High fat foods
- High salt foods
- Processed foods
- Fast food/Takeaway
Food practices - Eating out - snack
- Eating out - picnics
- Parties and Entertaining
- Food selling
- Food serving
Gender - Food serving - female
Signage - Signs for fictional products
- Shop sign
Positive/negative value n/a Food as sense of place - Urban
Setting - Urban landscape
Food as social cohesion - Rituals
- Social gatherings
Food as cultural identity - White Australian characters
- Non-Anglo characters [minor]
Food as character identity n/a Food as language n/a
Affiliation Notes
-
This work is affiliated with the AustLit subset Asian-Australian Children's Literature and Publishing because it has been translated into Korean.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
-
Fiona’s Best of 2016
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: Reading Time , December 2016;
— Review of Do Not Open This Book 2016 single work picture book ; A Bus Called Heaven 2011 single work picture book -
What Are We Feeding Our Children When We Read Them a Book? Depictions of Mothers and Food in Contemporary Australian Picture Books
2016
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Mothers and Food : Negotiating Foodways from Maternal Perspectives 2016; (p. 232-244)'This chapter explores how Australian writers and illustrators in the twenty-first century depict the act of mothering in picture books for young children in relation to cooking and serving food. It draws on the idea that children’s texts can be understood as sites of cultural production and reproduction, with social conventions and ideologies embedded in their narrative representations. The analysis is based on a survey of 124 books that were shortlisted for, or won, Children’s Book Council of Australia awards between 2001 and 2013. Of the eighty-seven titles that contain food and have human or anthropomorphised characters, twenty-six (30 percent) contain textual or illustrative references to maternal figures involved in food preparation or provision. Examination of this data set reveals that there is a strong correlation between non-Anglo-Australian maternal figures and home-cooked meals, and a clear link between Anglo-Australian mothers and sugar-rich snacks. The relative paucity of depictions of ethnically unmarked mothers offering more nutritious foods is notable given the cultural expectations of mothers as caretakers of their children’s well-being. At the same time, the linking of non-Anglo-Australian mothers with home-cooked meals can be seen as a means of signifying a cultural authenticity, a closeness to the earth that is differentiated from the normalised Australian culture represented in picture books. This suggests an unintended alignment of mothers preparing and serving meals with “otherness,” which creates a distancing effect between meals that may generally be considered nutritious and the normalised self. I contend there are unexamined, and perhaps unexpected, cultural assumptions about ethnicity, motherhood, and food embedded in contemporary Australian picture books. These have the potential to inscribe a system of beliefs about gender, cultural identity, and food that contributes to readers’ understanding of the world and themselves.'
Source: Abstract.
-
A Bus Called Heaven by Bob Graham
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: Buzz Words , February 2012; Buzz Words , September 2013;
— Review of A Bus Called Heaven 2011 single work picture book -
[Review] A Bus Called Heaven
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: Reading Time : The Journal of The Children's Book Council of Australia , February vol. 56 no. 1 2012; (p. 16)
— Review of A Bus Called Heaven 2011 single work picture book -
A Bus Called Heaven
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: The Horn Book Magazine , May/June vol. 88 no. 3 2012; (p. 60-67)
— Review of A Bus Called Heaven 2011 single work picture book
-
Off the Shelf : Picture Book
2011
single work
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 15 October 2011; (p. 32)
— Review of A Bus Called Heaven 2011 single work picture book -
Under Age
2011
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sunday Age , 16 October 2011; (p. 17)
— Review of The Spies of Gerander 2011 single work children's fiction ; A Bus Called Heaven 2011 single work picture book -
[Review] A Bus Called Heaven
2011
single work
review
— Appears in: Bookseller + Publisher Magazine , September vol. 91 no. 3 2011; (p. 15)
— Review of A Bus Called Heaven 2011 single work picture book -
[Review] A Bus Called Heaven
2011
single work
review
— Appears in: Magpies : Talking About Books for Children , November vol. 26 no. 5 2011; (p. 31)
— Review of A Bus Called Heaven 2011 single work picture book -
The Very Best of Company
2011
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 17 December 2011; (p. 26-27)
— Review of Bom! Went the Bear 2011 single work picture book ; The Jewel Fish of Karnak 2011 single work picture book ; A Bus Called Heaven 2011 single work picture book ; The Carousel 2011 single work picture book ; Pizza Cake and Other Funny Stories 2011 selected work short story ; The Coming of the Whirlpool 2011 single work novel -
Small Eyes, Big Prize
2012
single work
column
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 18 August 2012; (p. 24-25) The Sydney Morning Herald , 18-19 August 2012; (p. 30-31) -
Road to Inspiration Starts Right at Home
2012
single work
column
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 18 August 2012; (p. 47) -
Bob Graham on 'A Bus Called Heaven'
Cynthia K. Ritter
(interviewer),
2012
single work
interview
— Appears in: The Horn Book Magazine , May/June vol. 88 no. 3 2012; (p. 66) -
What Are We Feeding Our Children When We Read Them a Book? Depictions of Mothers and Food in Contemporary Australian Picture Books
2016
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Mothers and Food : Negotiating Foodways from Maternal Perspectives 2016; (p. 232-244)'This chapter explores how Australian writers and illustrators in the twenty-first century depict the act of mothering in picture books for young children in relation to cooking and serving food. It draws on the idea that children’s texts can be understood as sites of cultural production and reproduction, with social conventions and ideologies embedded in their narrative representations. The analysis is based on a survey of 124 books that were shortlisted for, or won, Children’s Book Council of Australia awards between 2001 and 2013. Of the eighty-seven titles that contain food and have human or anthropomorphised characters, twenty-six (30 percent) contain textual or illustrative references to maternal figures involved in food preparation or provision. Examination of this data set reveals that there is a strong correlation between non-Anglo-Australian maternal figures and home-cooked meals, and a clear link between Anglo-Australian mothers and sugar-rich snacks. The relative paucity of depictions of ethnically unmarked mothers offering more nutritious foods is notable given the cultural expectations of mothers as caretakers of their children’s well-being. At the same time, the linking of non-Anglo-Australian mothers with home-cooked meals can be seen as a means of signifying a cultural authenticity, a closeness to the earth that is differentiated from the normalised Australian culture represented in picture books. This suggests an unintended alignment of mothers preparing and serving meals with “otherness,” which creates a distancing effect between meals that may generally be considered nutritious and the normalised self. I contend there are unexamined, and perhaps unexpected, cultural assumptions about ethnicity, motherhood, and food embedded in contemporary Australian picture books. These have the potential to inscribe a system of beliefs about gender, cultural identity, and food that contributes to readers’ understanding of the world and themselves.'
Source: Abstract.
Awards
- 2014 shortlisted KOALA Awards — Picture Book
- 2013 joint winner COOL Award — Picture Book
- 2013 longlisted UKLA Book Awards — 3-6
- 2012 CBCA Book of the Year Awards — Notable Book — Picture Book
- 2012 shortlisted Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year Awards — Best Language Development Book for Young Children (2005-2013)