With the holidays looming up ahead, it’s time to set your mind to travel and fun things. Here are four books to take you through the month. These books have a common theme running through them, and yes, it’s travel or modes of transport.
Though it has wheels, it has long since given up the ghost. A Bus Called Heaven by Bob Graham is a story of a little girl named Stella who falls in love with a bus that suddenly appears in the neighbourhood. It’s a long time since the bus has done its last journey, but Stella insists she takes it home. The whole neighbourhood pitches in and they push and pull the wreck to her front yard.
Everyone gets together and revamps the bus, making it a happy place for everyone. But, one Saturday morning, a tow truck arrives and the driver says, “The bus has to go...”
Another book, though it does not directly involve travel centres around a train. The Railway Children by E. Nesbit is an all time classic published in 1906. It has been adapted for the screen too. The story is about three children —Roberta, Peter and Phyllis and their mother, who move out of London to a house in Yorkshire called “The Three Chimneys”. Their father, who works at the Foreign Office, is wrongly imprisoned for spying. Every day, the children sit by the railway tracks waiting for their father to return. They befriend the station master, avert a horrible train disaster, take care of a Russian exile...and more
Take off
It’s time for a real holiday story. Goofies On a Holiday by Amishi Seth takes you on journey on the Borg I, a cruise ship to Africa! The Goofies have a particular trait — they rush through everything, forgetting and messing up, as a result. On the cruise ship with them is a gang planning to stage a daring diamond robbery, Mr. Alien and his companion Spacey who are wary of the Goofies because of a previous misadventure. A harum-scarum adventure set at a frantic pace that leaves you with very little time to catch your breath.
And how about a car that decides where you should go and how? Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again is a continuation of Ian Fleming’s book Chitty Chitty Bang Bang . The sequel is written by Frank Cottrell Boyce, a great fan of the first book. Mr Tooting has lost his job and instead of getting himself a new one, he decides to fix things around the house. And, gets himself an old broken camper-van, much to the dismay of the family, which consists of Mrs Tooting, Lucy, the moody daughter, Jem the whiz-kid and baby Harry. And then the fun begins.
At the end of it you will wish you had a car like that!
