Rhythm and energy abound as a young girl sings herself a map of her trip to the grocery store and back. Accompanied by an older brother, sent along by her mother to make sure she doesn’t get lost, she proves through her song that she knows the way and can also sing her way back, repeating the refrain, “It’s my city!” in combination with the sights and sounds along the way. “Click, clunk, click, clunk. It’s my city!” Depicted in bold gouache in primary colors, the two pass such landmarks as the laundromat (“Shake, slosh, shake, slosh”), a train (“Rattle, rattle, shake”), and restaurants (“Sputter, sizzle, pip, pop!”), finally arriving back home where they are greeted by a welcome surprise. (The double-paged layout shows their route along the bottom, with a fuller depiction of each stop on the upper two-thirds of the pages.) A coda reprises the theme, “Uptown, downtown, it’s my city! / I can sing it from the end / Or from the start. / Slosh, rattle, click, I know / Squeak, sizzle, tick, / The city / Clank, hip-hop, be-bop, / By heart.” Elementary mapping, finding one’s way, and the mnemonic uses of rhythm and rhyme are all aspects of this gambol to which young children will relate. (Picture book. 5-7)
