Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus - Hardcover

Mo Willems

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1844280136 ISBN 13: 9781844280131

Publisher: Walker Childrens Hardbacks, 2004

Synopsis

When the driver leaves the bus temporarily, he gives the reader just one instruction: "Don't let the pigeon drive the bus". But that pigeon tries every trick in the book to get in the driving seat. He whines, wheedles, fibs and flatters. Will you let him drive?

About this title

Review

Amazon Exclusive: The Pigeon: A Life in Pictures
(Click on images to enlarge)

Back in 1993, I was cartooning for a ’zine. Due to a lack of other material, we decided to make the December issue a sketchbook with just my cartoons. I have been producing small cartoon and story sketchbooks for clients and pals every year since then.	In 1998, my sketchbook featured a new character, the Pigeon. Born in the margins of a 1997 notebook filled with potential picture book ideas, he was complaining that his ideas were better than mine. To mollify him, I put him in that year’s sketchbook.	The original sketchbook was much longer than the final published volume, but some of the lines were the same.
In late 1999, an agent essentially agreed with the Pigeon and rejected my picture book ideas. She suggested I revisit my sketchbook with an eye to turning it into a picture book. My wife was working at a school library at the time and had read the sketchbook to her kids, who had enjoyed it. So I suppose it wasn’t too crazy an idea. I started to revise the layout and work with color.	At the end of 2001, after several dozen rejections because the book was “unusual,” an editor decided that “unusual” was a good thing. Plus, it made her laugh. I began reworking and rewriting. The Pigeon was now starting to look more like his mature self.	Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! was published in April 2003 and, to my surprise, proved to be popular quite quickly. Thankfully, that Pigeon doodle in the notebook back in 1997 was so insistent. He was right!

About the Author

Mo Willems is a five-time Emmy Award-winning writer and animator for Sesame Street and the creator of Cartoon Network's Sheep in the Big City. This is his first book for children. He lives with his family in Brooklyn, New York.

Edition details

• Publisher: Walker Childrens Hardbacks
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1844280136
• ISBN 13: 9781844280131
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 40