THE BREAD BUS

A baking beaver gets help from neighborhood youngsters when his bus made of bread gets stuck on the way to market.

Originally published in China and Belgium and translated from Dutch, the story follows Beaver as he prepares to bring his treats to the spring market. He packs them into his bus, a large loaf of sandwich bread on wheels that runs on chocolate sauce. The curious young woodland creatures who join him along the way daydream about having their own croissant cars and baguette station wagons. When the bus gets stuck, the passengers try various ways to fix it until Little Raccoon shows them how to turn the vehicle into a sandwich sled. (Naturally, this involves a lot of nibbling.) Everyone slides downhill into the spring market. A few months later, when the time comes for the summer festival, a batch of new bread-based vehicles are ready to roll, too. The story is cheerful and low-stakes but a bit lackluster, without much in the way of conflict, character development, message, or layers. The unpolished, childlike art style is charming in busy outdoor settings, but indoor and close-up scenes often feel unfinished or oddly proportioned.

Pleasant but unremarkable.