S1: Welcome in San Diego. It's Jade Hindman today we're talking about a children's book about a yellow school bus that takes us on a journey. We'll talk with author and illustrator Lauren Long. This is KPBS Midday Edition. Connecting our communities through conversation. The yellow school bus is an iconic symbol in American culture. I mean , we all know the lyrics to wheels on the bus , but what happens when a school bus loses its purpose ? Well , a new children's book called The Yellow Bus explores just that. In it , we follow the journey of a yellow bus as the town around it changes and it slowly becomes forgotten. The book is written and illustrated by best selling author Lorin Long. He's also doing a storytime this Saturday , June 29th at the San Diego Central Library , and Lauren joins me now. Lauren , welcome to midday.
S2: Well , thank you so much for having me , Jade. I'm excited to talk about this brand new picture book of mine.
S1: Oh yeah.
S2: Um , and it started about four years ago , as you might recall. And the rest of the world. There was something going on four years ago. It was the spring of the of , of 2020 and the pandemic hit , and my wife and I made a few changes like everybody did. And one of them was we decided to adopt a crazy hound dog. And it was kind of one of those pandemic adoptions. And , uh , every moment I'm in my studio , Charlie the dog is in my studio. He's a little high strung , which led me to another change in my life , and that is started running. And I was never much of a runner. But to get Charlie worked out and get his energy , um , going , I would go run with him every day and we would run along a bike trail. I live here in southwest Ohio , in the Cincinnati area , and there's a wooded bike trail nearby. And every day we noticed. A rusted out school bus through the trees. Now the rusted out school bus was sitting in a goat paddock and there were goats all around it. It was kind of miserable. It was sinking in the mud. Uh , the floorboards were rotting out. Um , but somehow , over time , Jade , as I was running along for a good year , just kind of think , you know , that's curious. Why is that bus there ? It dawned on me that bus seems happy with those goats climbing in to get out of the rain , playing in the springtime on top of the bus. And the bus was at the , you know , in a way , the worst place a bus could have been. I was thinking , surely it started bright and shiny , doing the most important job carrying this precious cargo from one important place to another. And there it sat , at the lowest point I could think of. Yet it seemed happy. And that that got me thinking about maybe this is a picture book.
S1: Yeah , well , you know , the bus once transported kids , and now it takes care of kids of a different type. That's right. Right.
S2: Right. Very good , very good , I love that.
S1: I mean , you know , in the book , everything is drawn in black and white except the yellow bus. It's it's what really brings colour to this world. Was that something you intended from the start ? No.
S2: Jade , that was another surprise. So first of all , okay , so as a children's book author and illustrator , um , I always think of the visuals first. However , I just wrote this piece not really thinking about the what the book would look like now. I , I , I was armed with the knowledge that I would illustrate it , so I did have that going for me , but I pretty much wrote the piece and tried to be as minimal as possible with text , knowing that I could show what little eyes will read , um , so that the words partner up very well with the images. But then I was about midway through the sketch dummy , which is basically the plan , like the storyboard of a picture book. Um , and I always visualize as if I'm kind of making a little movie , like , I'm a film director and I'm the cinematographer , and I've got my main character and I'm the casting director , and I'm , I'm the person who dresses up all the characters , and I'm making a little film. And it kind of occurred to me like , you opened with that. The school bus , the yellow bus is an iconic symbol in our society , in many societies across the world , and I wanted that yellow to pop off the page. So if you're a 15 month old on somebody's lap , this book just just might be an exercise in pointing out the yellow off of that gray charcoal ground. But if you really read into the book , what really got me going as a writer was I kind of happened across this refrain. They filled her with joy. Then it started taking on a little deeper meaning than just a cute story about a school bus.
S3: Um , and.
S1:
S2: It represents just this simple feeling that the yellow bus gets when she's doing something in the service of others. It's a very simple , simple , like human thing , but that's kind of in a way , touching on what my hope is , is that readers and families and teachers and children could take from this of all ages. And that is , um , just the curiosity I had when I was running by that , that abandoned , broken down bus. And I hope readers will ask themselves , why is this yellow bus happy ? And there's a there's a lot of twists and turns and surprises in the buses life that are out of its control , out of her control. Yet what she can control is her outlook. So this is this is me now getting a little bit more , uh , deeper or philosophical about a , uh , a picture book for children. But I think sometimes readers can take different things away. And I think that's what a lot of us as people who are writing for children and making art for children , kind of endeavored to do. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. This is KPBS Midday Edition. We're back after the break. Welcome back to KPBS Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman , speaking with author and illustrator Loren Long about his new book , The Yellow School Bus.
S2: I was , uh , I was just a typical kid in the Midwest who , uh , liked lots of different things , sports and whatnot. Uh , my mom and dad were not artists. We we didn't visit museums. I actually grew up in Lexington , Kentucky , but around seventh grade , I started. I mean , I always like to draw , but around seventh grade , I had an art teacher that encouraged me. And , uh , I'll never forget him. Mr. Pennington , the cool thing about Mr. Pennington is he was not only the art teacher , he was the football coach. The coolest man in the building. Right. And , uh , and he he , uh , would see my name and hold my drawing up in front of a class of my peers , and that that stirred something inside of me. And it planted the seed. I wonder if I could be some kind of an artist. And , um , then I went to college and art school and finally decided I'm going to be an illustrator. Um , had the talk with my father , who was in sales , and mom was like a secretary , so they didn't know , but they always supported me. And , and , uh , I was very fortunate that even though they didn't know this world that I was going to try to , to work in , they were supportive.
S1: Family support is so important. Well , you're going to have this event at the San Diego Central Library. Tell us about that.
S2: I'm really excited about this. I'm going to be at the American Library Association , which is hosted in San Diego , uh , this coming weekend. And I was so excited when Macmillan , um , my publisher also arranged this San Diego Public Library event , and I'm going to be really for only about the , the the second time presenting the yellow bus to families and to the public. So what I'll do is it'll be a , you know , a nice short presentation , but yet pretty , um , involved. I'm going to share , from the idea to the process , different decisions that I made on this yellow bus. So I would encourage families with little ones to come. I would encourage anyone who who is a teacher or a librarian or a bookseller to come. And also not just the little tiny ones , but let's say you're a middle school kid who likes who likes to draw , or let's say you're an art student or a college student. And , uh , it's always for me , studying other artists and hearing them talk has always been informative and inspirational. Mhm.
S3: Mhm.
S1: All right. Sounds good. And something that a lot of people will want to come in here. I've been speaking with Lauren Long , author and illustrator of The Yellow Bus. He'll be doing a storytime at the San Diego Central Library this Saturday , June 29th. Lauren , thank you so much for joining us today.
S2: Thank you so much for having me. Jade. And I hope to see as many people can make it come out Saturday. I'd love to meet you.
