Back Seat Blues! Are We There, Yeti? by Ashlyn Anslee

THIS IS YETI. HE DRIVES OUR BUS.

No matter whether it's a short trip to the zoo, a cross-country drive, or a school field trip, kids always find the ride interminable centuries long. And they don't suffer in silence!

"I'M BORED!"

"I'M HUNGRY!

"I'M THIRSTY!

"I'VE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM!"

"ARE WE THERE, YETI!"

Well, no! Past the sunny fields and farms and up and up and up the mountain the bus trundles, as snowflakes grow thicker and thicker and the landscape becomes more and more snowy. What kind of field trip is this?

But when the bus gets THERE, there's a surprise, as Yeti's children welcome them with snowboards, sleds, ice skates, and snow forts with plenty of snowballs.

And it's Let the winter games begin!, in Ashlyn Anslee's Are We There, Yeti? (Simon and Schuster, 2015), as the impatient passengers pile out to throw snowballs, build a snow yeti, and enjoy their impromtu snow day, as Anslee's cartoon kids and not-so-abominable snow kids make the most of the fun until they are all out of snow go!

And when the tuckered students pile back into the bus for the return trip, what's the first thing they all say?

"ARE WE HOME, YETI?"

Time to Travel? Ollie and Claire by Tiffany S. Haber

Ollie and Claire are best friends. Every day they meet and do the same things together. They even like to do yoga and yodel together! Their daily routine is, well, routine.

DINNER EACH NIGHT--BOLOGNA ON WHITE, PROMPTLY AT 7:15!

BUT CLAIRE WAS AWARE THAT SHE NEEDED A CHANGE.

"I'M BORED WITH THIS HUM-DRUM "ROUTINE."

Then on their daily stroll a sign catches Claire's eye.

TRAVEL FRIEND NEEDED FOR ROUND-THE-W0RLD JOURNEY!

ADVENTURE CALLS! COME CIRCLE THE PLANET WITH ME!

MEET ME MONDAY, HERE!

Claire is all set to starting packing her grip for a round-the-world trip--until she thinks about Ollie.  Ollie is such a stick-to-the-schedule, stick-in-the-mud type that Claire's sure he'd never sign on to a globetrotting adventure, but how can she give up this chance of a lifetime? Then again, how can she leave her old friend behind?

Tiffany S. Haber's Ollie and Claire (Philomel, 2013) deals with the dilemma of personal differences between best friends in a manner similar to Holly Hobbie's Toot and Puddle stories, except that, as the cover illustration by Matthew Cordell suggests, Ollie and Claire turn out to have more in common than Claire had thought, with a humorous and heartfelt ending. As Publishers Weekly points out, "Haber’s  rhymes are both metrically precise and delightfully original."