Are We There, Yeti?

Are We There, Yeti?
By Ashlyn Anstee
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2015, Picture Book

The friendly, big-toothed, marshmallow like bus driver, Yeti, is taking a class on a field trip. This particular trip holds a surprise destination, and all the while the children are asking, "are we there, Yeti?" They travel what appears to be a very long time past various scenes, starting with a small town to a coastal beach and eventually up into the high mountains. When they finally arrive to the snowy mountain top all the children are a bit confused, until small yeti children begin to appear throughout the next pages. The human children and yeti children play together in the snow, making snowmen, sledding, and having a snowball fight. When it comes time to leave the children don't want to go, exclaiming that, "they aren't ready, Yeti". The sweet Yeti reminds them that they will return soon. And so begins their journey back home, but not without a child or two asking, "are we home, Yeti?"

This book is a very cute play on the classic road trip question, "are we there yet?" With a silly, over-sized, and awfully jolly yeti as a bus driver. The story line is fairly simple and easy to read with a majority of the text in word bubbles. The fun illustrations will keep young reader's eyes lingering. If they look close enough they may even discover the story before it unfolds in text with various clues hidden throughout the illustrations. All-round a fun read-out-loud or simple enough for a beginning reader to read-a-loud.