KIRKUS REVIEW
With shaped pages and a fold-out map, this is a guide to the landmarks of the Big Apple.
Many NYC tourist sights are illustrated, including the expected (the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, and Times Square) and the too-rarely depicted (Chinatown and Harlem’s Apollo Theater), often in paired double-page spreads, with the die-cut page on the recto becoming a different vantage point (or inside) of the tourist attraction on the verso. Cleverly, the rectangular windows of the facade of the main building of the New York Public Library become the spines of shelved books when the page is turned and readers enter. Cosneau’s flat, graphic images in muted, cool colors adeptly capture the busy energy of the city, presenting a diverse cast of people with stylized skin tones of warm gray, chalk white, mustard yellow, and salmon pink. Franceschelli peppers the art with a few brief lines that set the scene: “GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL / People rushing. People running. // Where’s my train? Time to GO!” The first spread is a fold-out map that provides a key to the 10 featured landmarks, though it is not scaled for navigation. It is incorrectly labeled as a map of New York City (Staten Island and the Bronx are nowhere in sight, and Brooklyn and Queens are gray spaces on the margins). The companion title, Hello Paris!, takes young readers across the pond with a similar format and illuminates landmarks in the City of Lights, such as the Louvre, Montmartre, and Notre-Dame. With thinner-than-normal board pages sporting die-cuts, fold-out maps, and spines that could easily give way, both titles are best suited to readers already accustomed to books.
Playful and inviting armchair travel for conscientious youngsters. (Board book. 2-4)
