The Bus Ride

A sketch from a picture book in progress

The bus ride comes before everything else.

Before the classroom.
Before the teacher calls her name.
Before anyone decides whether she is shy, quiet, or brave.

A child sits by the window, watching a city she has not learned how to read yet.

This unfinished sketch comes from a story I’ve been writing about an immigrant child’s first day at school.

The bus ride is one of the few places in the picture book where the character can simply observe. Once the school doors open, the story fills with names, voices, and small social negotiations. But on the bus, the child is still mostly watching and collecting details about a place she has not yet learned how to belong to.

For a picture book, moments like this are useful. They allow the illustration to carry the emotional weight of the story before words take over the work of explaining things.

The bus window holds the character in place while the world moves past. She sits between two places, the home she has left behind and the school day that has not quite begun.

Picture books often live in these subtle and gentle transitions. The big events matter, of course, but the heart of the story sits in the pause just before them.

A child looking out the window, wondering what the day might bring.

For now, the story is still on the bus.

In this space, I share sketches like this, fragments of stories taking shape, and reflections on the picture books that continue to influence how I think about the form.