posted on 20 Mar 2023

The Repair Shop Stories: The Toy Bus by Amy Sparkes, illustrated by Katie Hickey

If you spend any time watching television, it’s likely that you’ve come across one of the runaway successes of recent years – The Repair Shop. The format is simple but incredibly effective: a group of talented and hugely skilled craft workers pool their services to fix and renovate a range of objects owned by members of the public and rescue all manner of things that have a deep emotional significance for their owners. The results are often spectacular and deeply affecting for the owners and viewers alike.

Each of these visits to the Repair Shop is a condensed story that explains the history of the object to be repaired and its significance to the family who own it – behind even the most simple ornament is a complex and emotionally involving narrative that draws the viewer in. So, it makes entirely good sense to use some of these stories as the basis for lavish picture books and the publisher, Walker Books, has done just that, bringing us The Toy Bus by Amy Sparkes with fabulous illustrations by Katie Hickey.

When Grannie Elsie takes Toby and his younger brother, Sam to the Repair Shop they take with them an old toy bus that has been well played with and which is in need of sprucing-up. Grannie Elsie explains to Jay, the Repair Shop co-ordinator, that the bus has very special memories and she tells him the story of why its so important to the family.

When she was a child, Elsie would go to the park with her little brother, David and watch the big red buses pass by. Elsie would run alongside the bus waving to the driver, conductor and passengers by David, who wanted to join in couldn’t because he had cerebral palsy. When they discovered a big red toy bus in the shop, Elsie was desperate to get it for David and when he saw it, he was completely enthralled. Soon he was using it to help him stand and walk a few steps for the first time. It was amazing! He practiced and practiced until he could use his special toy bus to join in with Elsie, running alongside the buses as they went by the park.

So the bus had seen better days but now Elsie’s grandchildren, Toby and Sam, want to play with it again. The experts of the Repair Shop get to work and sprinkle their magic until the bus is looking as good as new again:

“The toy bus looked just as Elsie and David remembered. When the family played with the bus together, Sam giggled and clapped his hands.”

At the end of the book is a page given over to the true story of the toy bus and a profile of some of The Repair Shop experts for those who may be coming across them for the first time.

It would be wrong for any review not to mention the excellent illustrations that give the text an added dimension. Kate Hickey ‘uses a combination of hand rendered print processes and digital techniques to create her work’ and the colours a vivid and work really well on the larger page size. I’d especially point you to the double spread front and endpapers which are beautifully done.

You will be able to get a copy of the book from your local independent bookshop, who will be happy to order it if they don’t have it on their shelves.

 

Terry Potter

March 2023