Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Williams

(Graded Reader)

The past several graded readers I've been reviewing have all been childhood classics that I've adapted for the ESL classroom.

This book, however, I had never heard of before I came across it.  According to Wikipedia (W), it was published in 2003, so that explains why I have no childhood memory of it.

It's another authentic children's book, and not a graded reader, but it worked relatively well in my classroom.

The book is designed to be interactive.  The pigeon asks to drive the bus, and the children shout back that he can't drive the bus.  In my class, I helped this process out with some prompts.  I created a sign that read, "You can't drive the bus" and held it up at the appropriate times, and then the class would shout this out.

This book is available on amazon.com here.

I also used this Youtube video in my class.



Here are some supplementary teaching materials I made when teaching this book in my classes.  These materials don't really work too well independently of the actual book, so you'll need to get a copy of the book to use these.

PowerPoint: 1. (drive, slides, pub)

Worksheet: 1. (drive, docs, pub)

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