General Books About New York City (Nonfiction) |
New York City has to be one of the greatest places in America, if not the world.
Luckily for us, many authors have chronicled The Big Apple's antics in a way just right
for kids.
Here are some of
the books available. This is not yet a complete list, but I'm adding
books to the list daily. If you wish to purchase any of these books, click on either the title or the book cover to be directed to Amazon.com. As a warning, I have put up pictures of the book covers to give you somewhat an idea of the style of each book (I know, I know. "Don't judge a book by its cover") so the pages may load slowly, depending on the speed of your internet connection.
The categories below are sorted by approximate age group and topical categories. Feel free to browse around. The same links are located on the left side of your screen. To return back to this page, simply click on the "Welcome" link on the left.
If this website came up without frames, click here to see the complete "New York City Books for Kids" website with frames.
For NYC Family Travel Guides, go to the Travel Guides Page
For books about all of New York State, go to the New York State Page
Other Pages of Interest:
Fiction & Historical Fiction:
General Books About New York City (Nonfiction) |
Fiction NYC Picture Books and "Easy Reader" Stories (Ages 4-8) |
Fiction NYC Books (Ages 9-12) |
New York Fiction for Young Adults |
New York Historical Fiction (Colonial Period and Revolutionary War) |
New York Historical Fiction (Ellis Island & Immigration) |
New York Historical Fiction (Life in the 1800s) |
New York Historical Fiction (Life in the 1900s)
NYC History:
New York Biographies |
Native Americans from New York (History and Historical Fiction) |
New York History (Colonial Period and Revolutionary War) |
New York History (Immigration and Ellis Island) |
New York History (The 1800s) |
New York History (The 1900s) |
The World Trade Center and September 11, 2001 |
NYC Locations:
The Statue of Liberty |
The Empire State Building |
Central Park |
NYC Art Museums (Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, etc.) |
NYC's American Museum of Natural History |
Harlem Books (Including books about the Harlem Renaissance) |
Chinatown Books |
Little Italy Books |
The New York City Subway System |
Brooklyn Books |
The Bronx Books |
Queens Books |
Staten Island Books |
Long Island Books |
Upstate New York Books |
New York State Books
Life and Travel in NYC:
Thanksgiving in New York City |
Christmas in New York City |
New York Sports Teams and Players
The NYC Fire Department (FDNY) and NY Police Department (NYPD) |
General Books About Cities |
New York City and New York State Test Preparation and Study Guides |
New York Regents Review Books |
Parenting in New York City |
New York Travel Guides for Families with Children
NYC Toys, Puzzles, and Games (For Kids & Adults) |
Amazon.com Coupon Codes
Books for Beginning Readers
My New York
By Kathy Jakobsen
A tour of ``my favorite places,'' described in a letter from Becky to a friend who's moving to New York from the Midwest. The child's-eye view suggests a good balance of topics--a flea market and the subway, as well as Manhattan's familiar attractions. Folk-artist Jakobsen fills her precise illustrations with details to explore, employing different points of view to good advantage: the Empire State Building in perspective from the street (sideways on a foldout page) plus a panorama from its top on the verso; elevated views of the N.Y.C. Marathon and Chinatown. A vertical foldout accommodates the Natural History Museum's remarkably tall, slender barosaurus. The illustrations are busy but nicely orchestrated, with bright, attractively stylized forms and figures mingling on every spread, plus Becky--in the same attire regardless of season--to be discovered on each. Other pictorial visits to New York include Munro's Inside-Outside book; this one is distinguished by its wealth of cheerful, authentic detail and pleasingly decorative style. Endpaper map.
Description from Kirkus Reviews
From the South Street Seaport to the Museum of Natural History, Jacobsen presents New York City, capturing all its incredible energy. She frames the text in a letter from a young New Yorker writing to a friend. The boy will be visiting soon, and the narrator describes the many sights he'll see, not all of them regular tourist stops. The book really covers a wide age range. Primary-graders will enjoy looking at pictures, and older kids doing reports on the city should get a real feel for it through Jacobsen's art.
Description from Publisher
A gifted folk artist, Jakobsen (illustrator of Reeve Lindbergh's Johnny Appleseed) here conducts a thoroughly enjoyable and informative excursion through Manhattan. Her fastidiously detailed oil paintings illustrate a chatty letter written by a girl named Becky to a friend who will soon be moving from the Midwest to New York. Becky's tour of the Big Apple includes visits to the Central Park Zoo, the F.A.O. Schwarz toy store, Chinatown and the South Street Seaport; like any good guide, she throws in suggestive statistics (the Baby Watson cheesecake operation uses more than 38,000 eggs a day). Several foldout pages present larger-scale visual extravaganzas, among them a panorama of the skyline as seen from the top of the Empire State Building, a high-rise under construction and dinosaur skeletons at the American Museum of Natural History. As an added treat, youngsters can search out Becky and her parents, who appear in each picture. This stunning book's piece de resistance is a spectacular double-page spread of New York Harbor on the Fourth of July, with fireworks exploding over the Statue of Liberty and an impressive assemblage of tall ships. A splendid tribute to the city that never sleeps.
Description from Publishers Weekly
Jakobsen's combination of descriptive, conversational text and colorful folk-art paintings brings to life a young girl's New York scenes. From the Statue of Liberty off the lower tip of Manhattan to the Museum of Natural History on West 81st Street, readers tour places and events such as the NYC Marathon, the Central Park Zoo and carousel, FAO Schwartz, Chinatown, the home of Baby Watson cheesecake, the circus at Madison Square Garden, the aircraft carrier Intrepid, South Street Seaport, and the Fourth of July fireworks over New York Harbor. Fold-out pages of the Empire State Building and a building under construction are an interesting design addition. A map appears inside both front and rear covers. Most illustrations are double paged, with a few exceptions that do not work as well because of the busy details on facing pages. Notes at the end give additional information about each site or event mentioned. Although Becky's New York is in reality only a small area of Manhattan, the marvelously detailed illustrations and the excellent range of places paints an exciting and informative picture of the best of New York City life and activity. A visual treat for children from all around the country
Description from School Library Journal
From the South Street Seaport to the Museum of Natural History, Jakobsen presents New York City, capturing all its incredible energy. She frames the text in a letter from a young New Yorker writing to a friend. The boy will be visiting soon, and the narrator describes the many sights he'll see, not all of them regular tourist stops--one of the neatest pictures is of the Baby Watson Cheesecake Bakery, whose owner puts his baby picture on every box. Jakobsen's shrewdly chosen sites get terrific treatments in her crowded folk-style art, which makes the city come alive. Whether the view is from the roof of the writer's apartment building or looking across at snow-covered Central Park, the pictures make viewers feel as if they were right there, riding on the Staten Island Ferry or staring up at the Empire State Building (a three-page fold-out spread). The book really covers a wide age range. Primary-graders will enjoy looking at the pictures, and older kids doing reports on the city should get a real feel for it through Jakobsen's art. Adults, too, will enjoy the visual visit. A map of the city appears on the endpapers.
Description from Booklist
If you happen to like New York, you just may love Kathy Jakobsen's visionof Manhattan in 'My New York.' Hers is not the real city, of course, but themetropolis of fantasy. . . . Ms. Jakobsen, a folk artist, fills her pages with panoramic paintings of familiar cityscapes (oil on canvas in the originals) that teem with color, people and urban merriment. Yet for all the dizzy activity and multitudes of faces, . . . {the book} glows with a reassuring, almost pastoral tranquillity, as if Grandma Moses and Duke Ellington might inhabit the same country after all. Of blight, you'll find nothing here. The subways are spotless, their multicultural passengers cheery and friendly. . . . Ms. Jakobsen's point is not, I think, to be nostalgic so much as to see the city through young eyes.
Description from The New York Times Book Review
Journey Around New York from A to Z
by Martha & Heather Zschock
The Zschock sisters (Journey Around Boston from A to Z) bring their series to the Big Apple, where Heather Zschock, the designer of the series, presently lives. The mallard who guided the Boston tour is replaced here by a pigeon; it appears on every page, often in costume (e.g., dressed as an orchestra conductor or wearing a fire helmet). The alphabet theme only loosely organizes the information, as alliterative sentences, not topics, appear alongside each letter. Transportation, for example, is discussed at "R": "Roebling's rope wires reach across the river"; on each spread, a large watercolor (in this case, of the Brooklyn Bridge) illustrates a detailed paragraph (here, about the construction of that bridge). An inset panel shows a related subject (the Staten Island Ferry), while in the bottom margin a detail (a subway entrance) shares space with a fun fact (the city's buses, rails and subways "transport 2.3 billion people a year all over town!"). The events of September 11 figure under "T" ("Tough times take teamwork"), where a panel showing the Twin Towers is set into a view of the Unisphere from the 1964 World's Fair, "a symbol of `peace through understanding.' "
Description from Publishers Weekly
Like the authors' Journey around Boston from A to Z, this playful tour of the Big Apple combines snippets of history with glimpses of distinctive neighborhoods, public celebrations, and major tourist attractions. A friendly looking pigeon squires young viewers from Broadway's New Victory Theater to Grand Central Station, with its "zillions of commuters" zipping beneath a starry ceiling, and other sites, stopping to pay tribute to the heroes of the World Trade Center disaster at the Unisphere in Queens and pose with two women in old-fashioned swimwear on Coney Island's beach. Multiple captions and insets enhance the large, sharply detailed paintings, and a prefatory map locates each stop along the way. With notes about New York's distant and recent past, and nearly twice as many destinations as Roxie Munro's Inside Outside Book of New York City, this is an outstanding introduction that imparts a sense of the city's diversity along with some of its grander sights. For residents and prospective visitors alike.
Description from Booklist
From the Brooklyn Bridge to Broadway, from Central Park to Chinatown, from the Macy's Parade to the Metropolitan Museum of Art -- New York City has it all! Millions of visitors from around the globe are drawn to the Big Apple year after year. Now explorers of all ages can "visit" whenever they please with Journey Around New York from A to Z. This enchanting child's-eye guide to New York excites, educates, and enthralls readers with beautiful, detailed watercolor images and a fun and accessible but sophisticated text.
A proud and perky pigeon tour guide expertly escorts readers on a beautiful circuit of the city, pointing out interesting sights and fascinating facts along the way. Each page illuminates a New York theme with catchy alliterative headlines ("Journalists jot juicy jargon" or "Fifth Avenue is famous for fashion"), mini-history lessons, and fascinating facts. Thirty-two vivid pages celebrate the vibrancy, culture, and diversity of New York City. Martha Zschock's brilliant watercolor paintings provide an abundance of cheerful, authentic detail to explore, engaging readers while they become "instant experts" on one of the world's most exciting cities.
Journey Around New York from A to Z is special because it has tremendous cross-generational appeal. Children and adults alike will thrill at this wonderful, whimsical jaunt through the alphabet and New York City. The book is also distinguished by a witty sense of humor, with its quirky pigeon-about-town narrator. The pigeon pops up on each fanciful page in surprising, amusing, and characteristically New York places. He can be found, for example, chopsticks in wing, enjoying a dim sum feast. He joins the Rockettes' kick line, appears as a balloon in the Macy's parade, rides the subway with commuters, and even turns up as conductor at Lincoln Center.
Take a Journey Around New York from A to Z! Getting around New York has never been this easy – or as much fun!
Description from Publisher
The Inside-Outside Book of New York City
By Roxie Munro
Awards:
- A New York Times Best Illustrated Book of the Year
Take a tour of the Big Apple and discover both familiar and hidden spots: inside and outside the Statue of Liberty, the American Museum of Natural History, the New York Stock Exchange, the subway station at Times Square, Madison Square Garden, St. Patrick's Cathedral, the historic Flatiron Building, and more.
Description from Publisher
New York City is the bustling home of many wonders, such as the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty and over 700 miles of subway track. These and nine other landmarks are depicted in crisp, detailed illustrations from both the outside and the inside. The penguins at the Bronx Zoo are shown as a visitor would see them in full-color, double-page paintings. On the next spread, the people are shown from the penguins' perspective, inside looking out. A relatively calm one-page, outside view of the New York Stock Exchange leads into a double-page glimpse of the frenzied trading floor. The cover and title pages are nicely used to draw children into the book, through the city jaunt, and finally to the last page where a brief but cogent and informative text describes each location viewed. This book is reminiscent of Sasek's This Is New York in terms of the city and the author/illustrator's contagious enthusiasm for it. The intricate illustrations, unusual vantage points and care for mood through detail, however, create a unique and distinguished view of New York City.
Description from School Library Journal
New York State Of Mind
By Billy Joel and Izak Zenou
"I'm taking a Greyhound on the Hudson River Line - I'm in a New York state of mind."Billy Joel's evocative lyrics invite readers to tag along as two spirited little dogs experience the energy and excitement of New York City, one of the world's most visited cities. From the "movie stars in their fancy cars" at Radio City Music Hall to Chinatown, from the Empire State Building to a Central Park carriage ride, this colorful portrait of the city's most beloved landmarks is a joyous celebration of a great American city.
Description from Publisher
Next Stop Grand Central
By Maira Kalman
"Trains are trips. And trips are adventures. And adventures are new ideas and romance and you can't ever know what in the world will happen which is exactly why you are going." This is precisely the species of serendipity that bounces and leaps through the pages of Maira Kalman's picture book Next Stop Grand Central, a charming tribute to New York's Grand Central Station by the artist whose murals currently spice up the historic terminal. Kalman--brilliant creator of Max the millionaire poet dog in Ooh-la-la (Max in Love)--not only reflects the vibrant nature of the busy hub, she paints comical portraits of the folks behind the scenes who make it all happen: ("Etha delivers the mail--a letter to Mr. Pickle cannot go to Mr. Schnikle.") We're also introduced to the people who "zip and zap and whiz" through Grand Central as passengers: ("The woman with the blue pancake hat is going to Chinatown to buy Poo Nik Tea.") Snapshots of "things you'll see" in the terminal include someone waiting patiently, someone waiting impatiently, and someone looking up. Things you won't see? Einstein sailing and the pyramids of Giza. Next Stop Grand Central is a compassionate, quirky view of a cross-section of humanity--and that, Kalman seems to be saying, is what Grand Central Station is all about.
Description from Amazon.com
At Grand Central Station, Chief of Police George Coppola finds lost people, and Mr. Chidchester, head of the Lost and Found, finds lost dogs. Marino Marino makes oyster stew, while thinking up interesting math problems. A man in a porkpie hat buys cherry pies. Maira Kalman's stylized artwork, along with entertaining text, brilliantly captures the excitement of Grand Central Station, "the busiest, fastest, biggest place there is."
Description from Publisher
Sky Scrape/City Scape: Poems of City Life
By Jane Yolen (Editor)
This worthy successor to Lee Bennett Hopkins's The City Spreads Its Wings offers readers a glorious glimpse of New York City in particular and urban centers in general. Lively chalk-and-pastel scenesstreets, parks, crowdsappear on every page with poetry that celebrates one aspect of city life. Langston Hughes, Judith Thurman, Felice Holman, and Ann Turner are among the anthologized poets. Norma Farber's "Manhattan Lullaby" ("Lulled by rumble, babble, beep/let these little children sleep/let these city girls and boys/dream a music in their noise/hear a tune their city plucks/up from buses, up from trucks...") is a particularly memorable selection. A dynamic hymn to what Lucille Clifton refers to as "the inner city/ or/like we call it/ home."
Description from School Library Journal
Skyscrapers, subways, and crowded streets are the settings for the 25 poems and pictures in this anthology. The pages are packed with people, buildings, garbage, traffic. Everything is bursting with movement, light, and sound. Some poems have such power and energy: in Carl Sandburg's pounding "Prayers of Steel," in Ann Turner's jump-rope girl ("more like she stood still and the rope flew around her" ), in Lee Bennett Hopkins' flashing neon signs ("like fireworks fighting hard to explode" ). There are connections, too: in Betsy Hearne's "Commuters" swaying from straps; in Lilian Moore's "Pigeons" commuting from sidewalk to ledge; in Lucille Clifton's inner city ("or like we call it / home" ). From the first double-page spread of buildings that scrape the sky, to the trucks that roar out of the tunnels, the images have a physical immediacy and the words have a rhythm that will appeal to the elementary grades. Condon's rousing illustrations in chalk and oil pastel, filled with light and color, express the rumble and rush of city life. Like Adoff's Street Music: City Poems, this will be welcome in classrooms and libraries across the country, an exciting companion to all the volumes of nature poetry.
Description from Booklist
New York City
(Rookie Read-About Geography)
By David F. Marx
I teach second graders in Brooklyn and this is one of the few nonfiction books about New York city on their reading level! I was happy to add it to our classroom library. There are color photographs accompanied by simple text. It's perfect for young children to use for research, or just read up on their own about New York City.
Description from Amazon.com Customer Review
Good Morning, City
By Elaine Moore
As the sun rises, a city comes to life. People go to work, subways rumble, children set off for school, a tall ship enters the harbor, and shops open for business. Even though a city never sleeps, morning is a magical time of renewal, and william Low's subtle, emotion-filled illustrations capture the beautiful moments of a new day. Many of the illustrations are based on scenes from New York City, but this book celebrates what is magical about every great city.
Description from Publisher
Alphabet City
By Stephen T. Johnson
Awards:
- A 1996 Caldecott Honor book
This is hardly an alphabet book for preschoolers; some of the depictions of letters may stump older kids (or even adults!). Nevertheless, the artwork is quite amazing. At first glance, or even second, the art appears to be photographs, such is the beautiful clarity of the pictures. However, the paintings are actually done in pastels, watercolors, gouache, and charcoal on hot pressed watercolor paper. The images themselves, one to a page, with each forming a letter of the alphabet, are urban: A is a construction sawhorse; P, a handrail in the subway; Z, a building's fire escape. Some of the pictures, especially those that use negative space, are harder to spot. Still, this is sure to intrigue, and art teachers, especially, will enjoy finding ways to use such a unique offering.
Description from Booklist
Beginning with the A formed by a construction site's sawhorse and ending with the Z found in the angle of a fire escape, Johnson draws viewers' eyes to tiny details within everyday objects to find letters. In this wordless tour of sights from Times Square to the Brooklyn Bridge, he invites young and old alike to take a new look at familiar surroundings, discovering the alphabet without ever looking in a book or reading from a sign. Conceived in the tradition of Ann Jonas's work, especially The Thirteenth Clue, Johnson's pastel, watercolor, gouache, and charcoal paintings are much more realistic than his illustrations for The Samurai's Daughter; in fact, they are almost photographic in appearance. Some of the images are both clever and incredibly clear, e.g., the E found in the sideways view of a traffic light. Others, such as the C in the rose window of a Gothic church, are more obscure. Nevertheless, all of the paintings are beautifully executed and exhibit a true sense of artistic vision. While parents or teachers might assume from the title that this is a traditional alphabet book, they should be encouraged to look at it as an art book. It's sure to inspire older children to venture out on their own walks to discover the alphabet in the familiar objects of their own hometowns.
Description from School Library Journal
The scenes of New York City look like photographs, but they are actually realistic paintings that reveal the alphabet in a most unusual way. For example the letter "G" shows up in the grill work of lamppost and an "H" appears within a scene of two buildings connected by an walkway. It is intriguing and requires a bit of sophistication on the part of the reader.
Description from Children's Literature
City by Numbers
By Stephen T. Johnson
In this wordless companion to Alphabet City, Johnson joins the likes of Tana Hoban, Arlene Alda, and Donald Crews in his attraction to the numbers, letters, shapes, and compositions found in the architecture and infrastructures of outdoor places and public spaces. Paintings show numerals 121 that are camouflaged by the urban cityscapes in which they exist. Discovering each number is an exercise in visual literacy: 4 is found in the lines of the Manhattan Bridge at sunset, 8 is formed by the round rims of adjoining trash bins, a 15 hides in the cracked mortar between bricks. Some numbers occur in the lines, curves, and curlicues of existing architecture, such as an iron gate, a fire escape, a cornice; others are created by negative space, for example, between stones on a snowy walkway or in the scraped surface and papery patches of a building's peeling paint. The subjects are similar to those found in the first book, although the colors, this time, are wintry and more somber. Children will relish the game of locating numbers, while adults will pause over Johnson's deliberate use of shape and color to influence mood.
Description from Kirkus Reviews
In his newest creation Johnson does for numbers what he did for letters in Alphabet City. In and around New York City, Johnson explores angles, circles, squares, and intersecting lines from unusual perspectives. The number five emerges form the shadow of branches on a brick wall, trash baskets clearly reveal the number eight, and two tall smoke stacks are easily recognizable as the number eleven. In each of the stunning illustrations, visual acuity is the key. Some of the numbers are not readily discernible but the imaginative observer who looks for the unusual will be rewarded. Insightful, playful, poetic, this picture book will delight older children and art students of all ages.
Description from Children's Literature
Draw Along With Stuart Little in New York City
Visit Stuart Little and his family, and join in a fun-filled trip around the city! Young artists will love following Stuart’s adventures, inspired by Columbia Pictures’ engaging film Stuart Little. And now they can learn to draw their favorite things--from cats and cars to boats and ice cream! The drawing pad is preprinted with easy-to-follow, how-to-draw steps and simple line drawings that children can trace. Learning to draw has never been so much fun!
Description from Publisher
C Is for City
By Nikki Grimes
City is the operative word in this hustling, bustling, urban ABC book. It begins, "A is for arcade or ads for Apartments / on short streets with alleys alive with stray pets. / A is for Afghans named after their owners / who drive them to art shows in silver Corvettes." Cummings' lively cartoonish illustrations depict all of these a words, plus countless more tucked in for the keen-eyed reader. (A key in the back of the book lists all illustrated objects.) The rhymes themselves are quite clever and packed with vocabulary-expanding images. Each illustration is a hearty slice of urban life, with all its intersecting dramas and scenes within scenes. At a diner, for instance, four different dramas play out, including a doorman jumping double-Dutch and a teen flirting with the waitress. Certainly city children will identify with the book, but any child should find in its busy illustrations much worth discussing or poring over alone.
Description from Booklist
Gorgeous, vivid color illustrations are liberal embellishments to this alphabet rhyme of big city life. Urban-oriented kids will especially appreciate these familiar associations; from "K is for kosher shops/selling knishes" to "P is for playground or Pop's Pizzeria".
Description from Midwest Book Review
In this rhyming alphabet book, each letter represents different New York City experiencese.g., "A is for arcade or ads for apartments.../B is for butcher or/breakfast with bagels/or block-party bands/out on hot summer nights. C is for city/or cabbies named Clarence/or cool cats who chat/under boulevard lights." Many of the arresting images reflect the ethnic, religious, and economic diversity of urban life. From a sleek sports car with a bejeweled Afghan to tawdry fortune tellers and other entertainers, a wide range of people and neighborhoods are depicted. The rhythm of the verses is also varied, but it is always interesting and right on target for the audience. Illustrations in vivid, neon colors suggest the electricity and brashness of a loud city with its hard edges as well as the teeming population. In addition to the letter-specific items mentioned, others are incorporated into the pictures for sharp-eyed viewers to find. An entertaining selection along the lines of "A my name is Alice," set in the Big Apple.
Description from School Library Journal
New York City Buildings
By Ann Mace
Some of the world's most fascinating urban architecture is in New York City. (nonfiction)
Description from Publisher
Fine close-up photos of buildings found in New York are described in simple text: one is round, another is narrow, a third is guarded by lions. While the buildings are identified as the Guggenheim Museum, the United Nations, and the N.Y. Public Library on a map on the endpaper, a line of text per page concentrates on the building's attributes. Each book in the "Books for Young Learners" series is keyed to Emergent, Early, or Fluent readers, a scale which spans K-2 readers. In addition, the key indicates supported (S), guided (G), or independent (I) for each of these stages. Natural word choice and pictures work closely to support new and young readers in practicing skills with an adult or independently. This book supplies plenty of opportunities to talk about skylines, buildings, and shapes, and in this case, to view the former World Trade Towers, which are pictured as "very, very tall."
Description from Children's Literature
The Ultimate Sticker Books: New York
Children can create their own picture books as they learn about two exciting cities, their sights, customs, and culture. Each book is packed with informative text and 70 colorful, self-adhesive photo-stickers. Full color. plus 4 pages of stickers.
Description from Publisher
Travels with MAX to New York City
By Nancy Ann Van Wie
Filled with facts, puzzles, riddles and brain teasers, Travels with MAX to New York City is a fun and educational travel guide for young children. With the assistance of their tour guide MAX, a V.I.K. (Very Important Koala), children learn the history of New York City and visit famous attractions such as the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Bronx Zoo, Yankee Stadium, museums and much more!
Description from Publisher
Citybook
By Shelley Rotner & Ken Kreisler
Loosely organized around Kevin's trip to the city, the sometimes rhyming text elaborates on the variety of things he enjoys doing there. Crisp, brightly colored photographs capture unusual views of people and places that will intrigue young children. The bold, up-to-date look at New York City is a visual treat and will please city dwellers and visitors alike.
Description from Horn Book
What's the word for this glossy picture book of big-city sights? Colorful! A thin framework of story ("Kevin loved to visit the city. There was so much to see") soon gives way to quick phrases naming what Kevin saw: "Painted walls / and neon signs. / Long / lines." The text slips in and out of rhyme; sometimes it works well with the photos, and sometimes it seems extraneous. And while the inclusion of young Kevin in the photographs gives kids a person to identify with, some of those pictures have a staged look. Clear and vivid, the photos are the book's strong point, offering young children a focal point for talking about the city at home or in a preschool setting.
Description from Booklist
Thoughtful compositions and uncommon settings mark this vibrant collection of megalopolitan photographs--here, the teeming streets of New York City provide the setting. A boy chats on one of three pay telephones above which images of the Simpsons and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles stare out from a graffiti-scarred wall; a vivid kaleidoscope of neon signs touts "Party Cake" and "Erasmo's Laundry"; a speeding subway car becomes little more than a green-streaked blur. With seldom more than four words to a spread, the minimal text ranges from imaginative ("Mimes, music, museums" identifies a cheery gamin, a saxophone player, a dino likeness) to captions short on inspiration ("So many sights. /So many lights"). But here the photo's the thing, and many highlight arresting images beyond the usual big-city travelogue--though a few are overly dark. A handsome introduction to a unique urban landscape.
Description from Publishers Weekly
This colorful photo essay presents a child's-eye view of New York City, from fountains and flags to taxis and roller blades. Full-page, crystal-clear pictures of ethnic markets, neon signs, street scenes, parks and museums, and a multitude of lights fairly leap from the pages, presenting the broad spectrum of urban activities. The dust cover itself invites readers to look, see, and learn. The minimal rhyming text of one to three words on most pages is concise and easy to read. A vibrant introduction to the city's many sights and sounds.
Description from School Library Journal
Cut and Assemble New York Harbor
By Albert Gary Smith
Expertly designed, beautifully illustrated panorama includes Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, skyscrapers, tugboats, Staten Island Ferry, rivers, bay, much more. Complete step-by-step instructions and diagrams explain how to cut, fold and assemble three-dimensional pieces and backdrop scenes of the glorious New York skyline.
Description from Publisher
New York City Tattoos
By Eric Gottesman
Full-length portrait of othe Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building towering over other skyscrapers, the Brooklyn Bridge at night, and 2 other colorful, large-size tattoos.
Description from Publisher
Taxi Driver!: Dashing Around New York City
By Robyn Brode
In this series for younger boys and girls, each book features cartoon-style illustrations superimposed on vivid full-color photos that show different people in different cultures using different means of travel. The cartoons complementing each photo depict kids with their parents. Each parent is a vehicle driver of one kind or another—but the vehicle type depends entirely on where the story takes place! For instance, Maria is a little girl whose mother is a taxi driver in bustling New York City. Other kids and their parents live in Alaska, and travel by dog sled . . . or in a tropical rain forest, where touring visitors are taken on a safari ... or in the bush country of Australia's Outback, where the most common way for people to go places is to fly around in light aircraft. The photos on every page capture the contrasting scenic backgrounds and highly individual atmospheres of each book's place. Meanwhile, boys and girls will identify with the cartoon illustrations of kids and parents, as they learn a little bit about how people live and travel in different places. Early-grade teachers will value these wonderfully illustrated books as fine introductions to social studies.
Description from Publisher
Books for Older Readers
New York City
By Deborah Kent
Great cities represent the crossroads of a country's politics, culture, and social community. Cities of the World gives students the opportunity to explore the world's urban centers without ever leaving the classroom. Readers will also investigate cities' attempts to solve the universal urban problems of unemployment, pollution, and crime. Each book presents a broad but detailed picture of societies and their people. Each book includes maps, a list of famous landmarks, a "Fast Facts" section, a glossary, and an index.
Description from Publisher
Destination New York
By Linda Tagliaferro
One in the series, "Port Cities of North America," this book introduces the reader to the changes in shipping that have occurred during New York's 350 year-history. From the days of the Dutch West India Company to the rise of containerized cargo, the port has played a vital role in the commerce of the eastern U.S. and parts of Canada. Following the thorough treatment of this subject, the book provides a glimpse into the cosmopolitan life of the Big Apple. A glossary, pronunciation guide and index are provided. Photographs and maps are plentiful.
Description from Children's Literature
Weegee's New York Postcard Book
By Paul Hutchens
Weegee held a mirror up to New York and revealed a city that was provocative and gripping, while at the same time managing to capture the City's heart.
Description from Miles Barth, International Center of Photography
New York City: Downtown America
By Barbara Johnston Adams
Children can take a grand tour of New York City without leaving home. The book highlights places of special interest through full-color photographs, a list of places to visit, a historical time line, and a map.
Description from Publisher
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Books for Beginning Readers
My New York
By Kathy Jakobsen
A tour of ``my favorite places,'' described in a letter from Becky to a friend who's moving to New York from the Midwest. The child's-eye view suggests a good balance of topics--a flea market and the subway, as well as Manhattan's familiar attractions. Folk-artist Jakobsen fills her precise illustrations with details to explore, employing different points of view to good advantage: the Empire State Building in perspective from the street (sideways on a foldout page) plus a panorama from its top on the verso; elevated views of the N.Y.C. Marathon and Chinatown. A vertical foldout accommodates the Natural History Museum's remarkably tall, slender barosaurus. The illustrations are busy but nicely orchestrated, with bright, attractively stylized forms and figures mingling on every spread, plus Becky--in the same attire regardless of season--to be discovered on each. Other pictorial visits to New York include Munro's Inside-Outside book; this one is distinguished by its wealth of cheerful, authentic detail and pleasingly decorative style. Endpaper map.
Description from Kirkus Reviews
From the South Street Seaport to the Museum of Natural History, Jacobsen presents New York City, capturing all its incredible energy. She frames the text in a letter from a young New Yorker writing to a friend. The boy will be visiting soon, and the narrator describes the many sights he'll see, not all of them regular tourist stops. The book really covers a wide age range. Primary-graders will enjoy looking at pictures, and older kids doing reports on the city should get a real feel for it through Jacobsen's art.
Description from Publisher
A gifted folk artist, Jakobsen (illustrator of Reeve Lindbergh's Johnny Appleseed) here conducts a thoroughly enjoyable and informative excursion through Manhattan. Her fastidiously detailed oil paintings illustrate a chatty letter written by a girl named Becky to a friend who will soon be moving from the Midwest to New York. Becky's tour of the Big Apple includes visits to the Central Park Zoo, the F.A.O. Schwarz toy store, Chinatown and the South Street Seaport; like any good guide, she throws in suggestive statistics (the Baby Watson cheesecake operation uses more than 38,000 eggs a day). Several foldout pages present larger-scale visual extravaganzas, among them a panorama of the skyline as seen from the top of the Empire State Building, a high-rise under construction and dinosaur skeletons at the American Museum of Natural History. As an added treat, youngsters can search out Becky and her parents, who appear in each picture. This stunning book's piece de resistance is a spectacular double-page spread of New York Harbor on the Fourth of July, with fireworks exploding over the Statue of Liberty and an impressive assemblage of tall ships. A splendid tribute to the city that never sleeps.
Description from Publishers Weekly
Jakobsen's combination of descriptive, conversational text and colorful folk-art paintings brings to life a young girl's New York scenes. From the Statue of Liberty off the lower tip of Manhattan to the Museum of Natural History on West 81st Street, readers tour places and events such as the NYC Marathon, the Central Park Zoo and carousel, FAO Schwartz, Chinatown, the home of Baby Watson cheesecake, the circus at Madison Square Garden, the aircraft carrier Intrepid, South Street Seaport, and the Fourth of July fireworks over New York Harbor. Fold-out pages of the Empire State Building and a building under construction are an interesting design addition. A map appears inside both front and rear covers. Most illustrations are double paged, with a few exceptions that do not work as well because of the busy details on facing pages. Notes at the end give additional information about each site or event mentioned. Although Becky's New York is in reality only a small area of Manhattan, the marvelously detailed illustrations and the excellent range of places paints an exciting and informative picture of the best of New York City life and activity. A visual treat for children from all around the country
Description from School Library Journal
From the South Street Seaport to the Museum of Natural History, Jakobsen presents New York City, capturing all its incredible energy. She frames the text in a letter from a young New Yorker writing to a friend. The boy will be visiting soon, and the narrator describes the many sights he'll see, not all of them regular tourist stops--one of the neatest pictures is of the Baby Watson Cheesecake Bakery, whose owner puts his baby picture on every box. Jakobsen's shrewdly chosen sites get terrific treatments in her crowded folk-style art, which makes the city come alive. Whether the view is from the roof of the writer's apartment building or looking across at snow-covered Central Park, the pictures make viewers feel as if they were right there, riding on the Staten Island Ferry or staring up at the Empire State Building (a three-page fold-out spread). The book really covers a wide age range. Primary-graders will enjoy looking at the pictures, and older kids doing reports on the city should get a real feel for it through Jakobsen's art. Adults, too, will enjoy the visual visit. A map of the city appears on the endpapers.
Description from Booklist
If you happen to like New York, you just may love Kathy Jakobsen's visionof Manhattan in 'My New York.' Hers is not the real city, of course, but themetropolis of fantasy. . . . Ms. Jakobsen, a folk artist, fills her pages with panoramic paintings of familiar cityscapes (oil on canvas in the originals) that teem with color, people and urban merriment. Yet for all the dizzy activity and multitudes of faces, . . . {the book} glows with a reassuring, almost pastoral tranquillity, as if Grandma Moses and Duke Ellington might inhabit the same country after all. Of blight, you'll find nothing here. The subways are spotless, their multicultural passengers cheery and friendly. . . . Ms. Jakobsen's point is not, I think, to be nostalgic so much as to see the city through young eyes.
Description from The New York Times Book Review
Journey Around New York from A to Z
by Martha & Heather Zschock
The Zschock sisters (Journey Around Boston from A to Z) bring their series to the Big Apple, where Heather Zschock, the designer of the series, presently lives. The mallard who guided the Boston tour is replaced here by a pigeon; it appears on every page, often in costume (e.g., dressed as an orchestra conductor or wearing a fire helmet). The alphabet theme only loosely organizes the information, as alliterative sentences, not topics, appear alongside each letter. Transportation, for example, is discussed at "R": "Roebling's rope wires reach across the river"; on each spread, a large watercolor (in this case, of the Brooklyn Bridge) illustrates a detailed paragraph (here, about the construction of that bridge). An inset panel shows a related subject (the Staten Island Ferry), while in the bottom margin a detail (a subway entrance) shares space with a fun fact (the city's buses, rails and subways "transport 2.3 billion people a year all over town!"). The events of September 11 figure under "T" ("Tough times take teamwork"), where a panel showing the Twin Towers is set into a view of the Unisphere from the 1964 World's Fair, "a symbol of `peace through understanding.' "
Description from Publishers Weekly
Like the authors' Journey around Boston from A to Z, this playful tour of the Big Apple combines snippets of history with glimpses of distinctive neighborhoods, public celebrations, and major tourist attractions. A friendly looking pigeon squires young viewers from Broadway's New Victory Theater to Grand Central Station, with its "zillions of commuters" zipping beneath a starry ceiling, and other sites, stopping to pay tribute to the heroes of the World Trade Center disaster at the Unisphere in Queens and pose with two women in old-fashioned swimwear on Coney Island's beach. Multiple captions and insets enhance the large, sharply detailed paintings, and a prefatory map locates each stop along the way. With notes about New York's distant and recent past, and nearly twice as many destinations as Roxie Munro's Inside Outside Book of New York City, this is an outstanding introduction that imparts a sense of the city's diversity along with some of its grander sights. For residents and prospective visitors alike.
Description from Booklist
From the Brooklyn Bridge to Broadway, from Central Park to Chinatown, from the Macy's Parade to the Metropolitan Museum of Art -- New York City has it all! Millions of visitors from around the globe are drawn to the Big Apple year after year. Now explorers of all ages can "visit" whenever they please with Journey Around New York from A to Z. This enchanting child's-eye guide to New York excites, educates, and enthralls readers with beautiful, detailed watercolor images and a fun and accessible but sophisticated text.
A proud and perky pigeon tour guide expertly escorts readers on a beautiful circuit of the city, pointing out interesting sights and fascinating facts along the way. Each page illuminates a New York theme with catchy alliterative headlines ("Journalists jot juicy jargon" or "Fifth Avenue is famous for fashion"), mini-history lessons, and fascinating facts. Thirty-two vivid pages celebrate the vibrancy, culture, and diversity of New York City. Martha Zschock's brilliant watercolor paintings provide an abundance of cheerful, authentic detail to explore, engaging readers while they become "instant experts" on one of the world's most exciting cities.
Journey Around New York from A to Z is special because it has tremendous cross-generational appeal. Children and adults alike will thrill at this wonderful, whimsical jaunt through the alphabet and New York City. The book is also distinguished by a witty sense of humor, with its quirky pigeon-about-town narrator. The pigeon pops up on each fanciful page in surprising, amusing, and characteristically New York places. He can be found, for example, chopsticks in wing, enjoying a dim sum feast. He joins the Rockettes' kick line, appears as a balloon in the Macy's parade, rides the subway with commuters, and even turns up as conductor at Lincoln Center.
Take a Journey Around New York from A to Z! Getting around New York has never been this easy – or as much fun!
Description from Publisher
The Inside-Outside Book of New York City
By Roxie Munro
Awards:
- A New York Times Best Illustrated Book of the Year
Take a tour of the Big Apple and discover both familiar and hidden spots: inside and outside the Statue of Liberty, the American Museum of Natural History, the New York Stock Exchange, the subway station at Times Square, Madison Square Garden, St. Patrick's Cathedral, the historic Flatiron Building, and more.
Description from Publisher
New York City is the bustling home of many wonders, such as the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty and over 700 miles of subway track. These and nine other landmarks are depicted in crisp, detailed illustrations from both the outside and the inside. The penguins at the Bronx Zoo are shown as a visitor would see them in full-color, double-page paintings. On the next spread, the people are shown from the penguins' perspective, inside looking out. A relatively calm one-page, outside view of the New York Stock Exchange leads into a double-page glimpse of the frenzied trading floor. The cover and title pages are nicely used to draw children into the book, through the city jaunt, and finally to the last page where a brief but cogent and informative text describes each location viewed. This book is reminiscent of Sasek's This Is New York in terms of the city and the author/illustrator's contagious enthusiasm for it. The intricate illustrations, unusual vantage points and care for mood through detail, however, create a unique and distinguished view of New York City.
Description from School Library Journal
New York State Of Mind
By Billy Joel and Izak Zenou
"I'm taking a Greyhound on the Hudson River Line - I'm in a New York state of mind."Billy Joel's evocative lyrics invite readers to tag along as two spirited little dogs experience the energy and excitement of New York City, one of the world's most visited cities. From the "movie stars in their fancy cars" at Radio City Music Hall to Chinatown, from the Empire State Building to a Central Park carriage ride, this colorful portrait of the city's most beloved landmarks is a joyous celebration of a great American city.
Description from Publisher
Next Stop Grand Central
By Maira Kalman
"Trains are trips. And trips are adventures. And adventures are new ideas and romance and you can't ever know what in the world will happen which is exactly why you are going." This is precisely the species of serendipity that bounces and leaps through the pages of Maira Kalman's picture book Next Stop Grand Central, a charming tribute to New York's Grand Central Station by the artist whose murals currently spice up the historic terminal. Kalman--brilliant creator of Max the millionaire poet dog in Ooh-la-la (Max in Love)--not only reflects the vibrant nature of the busy hub, she paints comical portraits of the folks behind the scenes who make it all happen: ("Etha delivers the mail--a letter to Mr. Pickle cannot go to Mr. Schnikle.") We're also introduced to the people who "zip and zap and whiz" through Grand Central as passengers: ("The woman with the blue pancake hat is going to Chinatown to buy Poo Nik Tea.") Snapshots of "things you'll see" in the terminal include someone waiting patiently, someone waiting impatiently, and someone looking up. Things you won't see? Einstein sailing and the pyramids of Giza. Next Stop Grand Central is a compassionate, quirky view of a cross-section of humanity--and that, Kalman seems to be saying, is what Grand Central Station is all about.
Description from Amazon.com
At Grand Central Station, Chief of Police George Coppola finds lost people, and Mr. Chidchester, head of the Lost and Found, finds lost dogs. Marino Marino makes oyster stew, while thinking up interesting math problems. A man in a porkpie hat buys cherry pies. Maira Kalman's stylized artwork, along with entertaining text, brilliantly captures the excitement of Grand Central Station, "the busiest, fastest, biggest place there is."
Description from Publisher
Sky Scrape/City Scape: Poems of City Life
By Jane Yolen (Editor)
This worthy successor to Lee Bennett Hopkins's The City Spreads Its Wings offers readers a glorious glimpse of New York City in particular and urban centers in general. Lively chalk-and-pastel scenesstreets, parks, crowdsappear on every page with poetry that celebrates one aspect of city life. Langston Hughes, Judith Thurman, Felice Holman, and Ann Turner are among the anthologized poets. Norma Farber's "Manhattan Lullaby" ("Lulled by rumble, babble, beep/let these little children sleep/let these city girls and boys/dream a music in their noise/hear a tune their city plucks/up from buses, up from trucks...") is a particularly memorable selection. A dynamic hymn to what Lucille Clifton refers to as "the inner city/ or/like we call it/ home."
Description from School Library Journal
Skyscrapers, subways, and crowded streets are the settings for the 25 poems and pictures in this anthology. The pages are packed with people, buildings, garbage, traffic. Everything is bursting with movement, light, and sound. Some poems have such power and energy: in Carl Sandburg's pounding "Prayers of Steel," in Ann Turner's jump-rope girl ("more like she stood still and the rope flew around her" ), in Lee Bennett Hopkins' flashing neon signs ("like fireworks fighting hard to explode" ). There are connections, too: in Betsy Hearne's "Commuters" swaying from straps; in Lilian Moore's "Pigeons" commuting from sidewalk to ledge; in Lucille Clifton's inner city ("or like we call it / home" ). From the first double-page spread of buildings that scrape the sky, to the trucks that roar out of the tunnels, the images have a physical immediacy and the words have a rhythm that will appeal to the elementary grades. Condon's rousing illustrations in chalk and oil pastel, filled with light and color, express the rumble and rush of city life. Like Adoff's Street Music: City Poems, this will be welcome in classrooms and libraries across the country, an exciting companion to all the volumes of nature poetry.
Description from Booklist
New York City
(Rookie Read-About Geography)
By David F. Marx
I teach second graders in Brooklyn and this is one of the few nonfiction books about New York city on their reading level! I was happy to add it to our classroom library. There are color photographs accompanied by simple text. It's perfect for young children to use for research, or just read up on their own about New York City.
Description from Amazon.com Customer Review
Good Morning, City
By Elaine Moore
As the sun rises, a city comes to life. People go to work, subways rumble, children set off for school, a tall ship enters the harbor, and shops open for business. Even though a city never sleeps, morning is a magical time of renewal, and william Low's subtle, emotion-filled illustrations capture the beautiful moments of a new day. Many of the illustrations are based on scenes from New York City, but this book celebrates what is magical about every great city.
Description from Publisher
Alphabet City
By Stephen T. Johnson
Awards:
- A 1996 Caldecott Honor book
This is hardly an alphabet book for preschoolers; some of the depictions of letters may stump older kids (or even adults!). Nevertheless, the artwork is quite amazing. At first glance, or even second, the art appears to be photographs, such is the beautiful clarity of the pictures. However, the paintings are actually done in pastels, watercolors, gouache, and charcoal on hot pressed watercolor paper. The images themselves, one to a page, with each forming a letter of the alphabet, are urban: A is a construction sawhorse; P, a handrail in the subway; Z, a building's fire escape. Some of the pictures, especially those that use negative space, are harder to spot. Still, this is sure to intrigue, and art teachers, especially, will enjoy finding ways to use such a unique offering.
Description from Booklist
Beginning with the A formed by a construction site's sawhorse and ending with the Z found in the angle of a fire escape, Johnson draws viewers' eyes to tiny details within everyday objects to find letters. In this wordless tour of sights from Times Square to the Brooklyn Bridge, he invites young and old alike to take a new look at familiar surroundings, discovering the alphabet without ever looking in a book or reading from a sign. Conceived in the tradition of Ann Jonas's work, especially The Thirteenth Clue, Johnson's pastel, watercolor, gouache, and charcoal paintings are much more realistic than his illustrations for The Samurai's Daughter; in fact, they are almost photographic in appearance. Some of the images are both clever and incredibly clear, e.g., the E found in the sideways view of a traffic light. Others, such as the C in the rose window of a Gothic church, are more obscure. Nevertheless, all of the paintings are beautifully executed and exhibit a true sense of artistic vision. While parents or teachers might assume from the title that this is a traditional alphabet book, they should be encouraged to look at it as an art book. It's sure to inspire older children to venture out on their own walks to discover the alphabet in the familiar objects of their own hometowns.
Description from School Library Journal
The scenes of New York City look like photographs, but they are actually realistic paintings that reveal the alphabet in a most unusual way. For example the letter "G" shows up in the grill work of lamppost and an "H" appears within a scene of two buildings connected by an walkway. It is intriguing and requires a bit of sophistication on the part of the reader.
Description from Children's Literature
City by Numbers
By Stephen T. Johnson
In this wordless companion to Alphabet City, Johnson joins the likes of Tana Hoban, Arlene Alda, and Donald Crews in his attraction to the numbers, letters, shapes, and compositions found in the architecture and infrastructures of outdoor places and public spaces. Paintings show numerals 121 that are camouflaged by the urban cityscapes in which they exist. Discovering each number is an exercise in visual literacy: 4 is found in the lines of the Manhattan Bridge at sunset, 8 is formed by the round rims of adjoining trash bins, a 15 hides in the cracked mortar between bricks. Some numbers occur in the lines, curves, and curlicues of existing architecture, such as an iron gate, a fire escape, a cornice; others are created by negative space, for example, between stones on a snowy walkway or in the scraped surface and papery patches of a building's peeling paint. The subjects are similar to those found in the first book, although the colors, this time, are wintry and more somber. Children will relish the game of locating numbers, while adults will pause over Johnson's deliberate use of shape and color to influence mood.
Description from Kirkus Reviews
In his newest creation Johnson does for numbers what he did for letters in Alphabet City. In and around New York City, Johnson explores angles, circles, squares, and intersecting lines from unusual perspectives. The number five emerges form the shadow of branches on a brick wall, trash baskets clearly reveal the number eight, and two tall smoke stacks are easily recognizable as the number eleven. In each of the stunning illustrations, visual acuity is the key. Some of the numbers are not readily discernible but the imaginative observer who looks for the unusual will be rewarded. Insightful, playful, poetic, this picture book will delight older children and art students of all ages.
Description from Children's Literature
Draw Along With Stuart Little in New York City
Visit Stuart Little and his family, and join in a fun-filled trip around the city! Young artists will love following Stuart’s adventures, inspired by Columbia Pictures’ engaging film Stuart Little. And now they can learn to draw their favorite things--from cats and cars to boats and ice cream! The drawing pad is preprinted with easy-to-follow, how-to-draw steps and simple line drawings that children can trace. Learning to draw has never been so much fun!
Description from Publisher
C Is for City
By Nikki Grimes
City is the operative word in this hustling, bustling, urban ABC book. It begins, "A is for arcade or ads for Apartments / on short streets with alleys alive with stray pets. / A is for Afghans named after their owners / who drive them to art shows in silver Corvettes." Cummings' lively cartoonish illustrations depict all of these a words, plus countless more tucked in for the keen-eyed reader. (A key in the back of the book lists all illustrated objects.) The rhymes themselves are quite clever and packed with vocabulary-expanding images. Each illustration is a hearty slice of urban life, with all its intersecting dramas and scenes within scenes. At a diner, for instance, four different dramas play out, including a doorman jumping double-Dutch and a teen flirting with the waitress. Certainly city children will identify with the book, but any child should find in its busy illustrations much worth discussing or poring over alone.
Description from Booklist
Gorgeous, vivid color illustrations are liberal embellishments to this alphabet rhyme of big city life. Urban-oriented kids will especially appreciate these familiar associations; from "K is for kosher shops/selling knishes" to "P is for playground or Pop's Pizzeria".
Description from Midwest Book Review
In this rhyming alphabet book, each letter represents different New York City experiencese.g., "A is for arcade or ads for apartments.../B is for butcher or/breakfast with bagels/or block-party bands/out on hot summer nights. C is for city/or cabbies named Clarence/or cool cats who chat/under boulevard lights." Many of the arresting images reflect the ethnic, religious, and economic diversity of urban life. From a sleek sports car with a bejeweled Afghan to tawdry fortune tellers and other entertainers, a wide range of people and neighborhoods are depicted. The rhythm of the verses is also varied, but it is always interesting and right on target for the audience. Illustrations in vivid, neon colors suggest the electricity and brashness of a loud city with its hard edges as well as the teeming population. In addition to the letter-specific items mentioned, others are incorporated into the pictures for sharp-eyed viewers to find. An entertaining selection along the lines of "A my name is Alice," set in the Big Apple.
Description from School Library Journal
New York City Buildings
By Ann Mace
Some of the world's most fascinating urban architecture is in New York City. (nonfiction)
Description from Publisher
Fine close-up photos of buildings found in New York are described in simple text: one is round, another is narrow, a third is guarded by lions. While the buildings are identified as the Guggenheim Museum, the United Nations, and the N.Y. Public Library on a map on the endpaper, a line of text per page concentrates on the building's attributes. Each book in the "Books for Young Learners" series is keyed to Emergent, Early, or Fluent readers, a scale which spans K-2 readers. In addition, the key indicates supported (S), guided (G), or independent (I) for each of these stages. Natural word choice and pictures work closely to support new and young readers in practicing skills with an adult or independently. This book supplies plenty of opportunities to talk about skylines, buildings, and shapes, and in this case, to view the former World Trade Towers, which are pictured as "very, very tall."
Description from Children's Literature
The Ultimate Sticker Books: New York
Children can create their own picture books as they learn about two exciting cities, their sights, customs, and culture. Each book is packed with informative text and 70 colorful, self-adhesive photo-stickers. Full color. plus 4 pages of stickers.
Description from Publisher
Travels with MAX to New York City
By Nancy Ann Van Wie
Filled with facts, puzzles, riddles and brain teasers, Travels with MAX to New York City is a fun and educational travel guide for young children. With the assistance of their tour guide MAX, a V.I.K. (Very Important Koala), children learn the history of New York City and visit famous attractions such as the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Bronx Zoo, Yankee Stadium, museums and much more!
Description from Publisher
Citybook
By Shelley Rotner & Ken Kreisler
Loosely organized around Kevin's trip to the city, the sometimes rhyming text elaborates on the variety of things he enjoys doing there. Crisp, brightly colored photographs capture unusual views of people and places that will intrigue young children. The bold, up-to-date look at New York City is a visual treat and will please city dwellers and visitors alike.
Description from Horn Book
What's the word for this glossy picture book of big-city sights? Colorful! A thin framework of story ("Kevin loved to visit the city. There was so much to see") soon gives way to quick phrases naming what Kevin saw: "Painted walls / and neon signs. / Long / lines." The text slips in and out of rhyme; sometimes it works well with the photos, and sometimes it seems extraneous. And while the inclusion of young Kevin in the photographs gives kids a person to identify with, some of those pictures have a staged look. Clear and vivid, the photos are the book's strong point, offering young children a focal point for talking about the city at home or in a preschool setting.
Description from Booklist
Thoughtful compositions and uncommon settings mark this vibrant collection of megalopolitan photographs--here, the teeming streets of New York City provide the setting. A boy chats on one of three pay telephones above which images of the Simpsons and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles stare out from a graffiti-scarred wall; a vivid kaleidoscope of neon signs touts "Party Cake" and "Erasmo's Laundry"; a speeding subway car becomes little more than a green-streaked blur. With seldom more than four words to a spread, the minimal text ranges from imaginative ("Mimes, music, museums" identifies a cheery gamin, a saxophone player, a dino likeness) to captions short on inspiration ("So many sights. /So many lights"). But here the photo's the thing, and many highlight arresting images beyond the usual big-city travelogue--though a few are overly dark. A handsome introduction to a unique urban landscape.
Description from Publishers Weekly
This colorful photo essay presents a child's-eye view of New York City, from fountains and flags to taxis and roller blades. Full-page, crystal-clear pictures of ethnic markets, neon signs, street scenes, parks and museums, and a multitude of lights fairly leap from the pages, presenting the broad spectrum of urban activities. The dust cover itself invites readers to look, see, and learn. The minimal rhyming text of one to three words on most pages is concise and easy to read. A vibrant introduction to the city's many sights and sounds.
Description from School Library Journal
Cut and Assemble New York Harbor
By Albert Gary Smith
Expertly designed, beautifully illustrated panorama includes Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, skyscrapers, tugboats, Staten Island Ferry, rivers, bay, much more. Complete step-by-step instructions and diagrams explain how to cut, fold and assemble three-dimensional pieces and backdrop scenes of the glorious New York skyline.
Description from Publisher
New York City Tattoos
By Eric Gottesman
Full-length portrait of othe Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building towering over other skyscrapers, the Brooklyn Bridge at night, and 2 other colorful, large-size tattoos.
Description from Publisher
Taxi Driver!: Dashing Around New York City
By Robyn Brode
In this series for younger boys and girls, each book features cartoon-style illustrations superimposed on vivid full-color photos that show different people in different cultures using different means of travel. The cartoons complementing each photo depict kids with their parents. Each parent is a vehicle driver of one kind or another—but the vehicle type depends entirely on where the story takes place! For instance, Maria is a little girl whose mother is a taxi driver in bustling New York City. Other kids and their parents live in Alaska, and travel by dog sled . . . or in a tropical rain forest, where touring visitors are taken on a safari ... or in the bush country of Australia's Outback, where the most common way for people to go places is to fly around in light aircraft. The photos on every page capture the contrasting scenic backgrounds and highly individual atmospheres of each book's place. Meanwhile, boys and girls will identify with the cartoon illustrations of kids and parents, as they learn a little bit about how people live and travel in different places. Early-grade teachers will value these wonderfully illustrated books as fine introductions to social studies.
Description from Publisher
Books for Older Readers
New York City
By Deborah Kent
Great cities represent the crossroads of a country's politics, culture, and social community. Cities of the World gives students the opportunity to explore the world's urban centers without ever leaving the classroom. Readers will also investigate cities' attempts to solve the universal urban problems of unemployment, pollution, and crime. Each book presents a broad but detailed picture of societies and their people. Each book includes maps, a list of famous landmarks, a "Fast Facts" section, a glossary, and an index.
Description from Publisher
Destination New York
By Linda Tagliaferro
One in the series, "Port Cities of North America," this book introduces the reader to the changes in shipping that have occurred during New York's 350 year-history. From the days of the Dutch West India Company to the rise of containerized cargo, the port has played a vital role in the commerce of the eastern U.S. and parts of Canada. Following the thorough treatment of this subject, the book provides a glimpse into the cosmopolitan life of the Big Apple. A glossary, pronunciation guide and index are provided. Photographs and maps are plentiful.
Description from Children's Literature
Weegee's New York Postcard Book
By Paul Hutchens
Weegee held a mirror up to New York and revealed a city that was provocative and gripping, while at the same time managing to capture the City's heart.
Description from Miles Barth, International Center of Photography
New York City: Downtown America
By Barbara Johnston Adams
Children can take a grand tour of New York City without leaving home. The book highlights places of special interest through full-color photographs, a list of places to visit, a historical time line, and a map.
Description from Publisher
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Fiction & Historical Fiction:
General Books About New York City (Nonfiction) |
Fiction NYC Picture Books and "Easy Reader" Stories (Ages 4-8) |
Fiction NYC Books (Ages 9-12) |
New York Fiction for Young Adults |
New York Historical Fiction (Colonial Period and Revolutionary War) |
New York Historical Fiction (Ellis Island & Immigration) |
New York Historical Fiction (Life in the 1800s) |
New York Historical Fiction (Life in the 1900s)
NYC History:
New York Biographies |
Native Americans from New York (History and Historical Fiction) |
New York History (Colonial Period and Revolutionary War) |
New York History (Immigration and Ellis Island) |
New York History (The 1800s) |
New York History (The 1900s) |
The World Trade Center and September 11, 2001 |
NYC Locations:
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NYC Art Museums (Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, etc.) |
NYC's American Museum of Natural History |
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Chinatown Books |
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The New York City Subway System |
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Upstate New York Books |
New York State Books
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The NYC Fire Department (FDNY) and NY Police Department (NYPD) |
General Books About Cities |
New York City and New York State Test Preparation and Study Guides |
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Parenting in New York City |
New York Travel Guides for Families with Children
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Books for Beginning Readers
My New York
By Kathy Jakobsen
A tour of ``my favorite places,'' described in a letter from Becky to a friend who's moving to New York from the Midwest. The child's-eye view suggests a good balance of topics--a flea market and the subway, as well as Manhattan's familiar attractions. Folk-artist Jakobsen fills her precise illustrations with details to explore, employing different points of view to good advantage: the Empire State Building in perspective from the street (sideways on a foldout page) plus a panorama from its top on the verso; elevated views of the N.Y.C. Marathon and Chinatown. A vertical foldout accommodates the Natural History Museum's remarkably tall, slender barosaurus. The illustrations are busy but nicely orchestrated, with bright, attractively stylized forms and figures mingling on every spread, plus Becky--in the same attire regardless of season--to be discovered on each. Other pictorial visits to New York include Munro's Inside-Outside book; this one is distinguished by its wealth of cheerful, authentic detail and pleasingly decorative style. Endpaper map.
Description from Kirkus Reviews
From the South Street Seaport to the Museum of Natural History, Jacobsen presents New York City, capturing all its incredible energy. She frames the text in a letter from a young New Yorker writing to a friend. The boy will be visiting soon, and the narrator describes the many sights he'll see, not all of them regular tourist stops. The book really covers a wide age range. Primary-graders will enjoy looking at pictures, and older kids doing reports on the city should get a real feel for it through Jacobsen's art.
Description from Publisher
A gifted folk artist, Jakobsen (illustrator of Reeve Lindbergh's Johnny Appleseed) here conducts a thoroughly enjoyable and informative excursion through Manhattan. Her fastidiously detailed oil paintings illustrate a chatty letter written by a girl named Becky to a friend who will soon be moving from the Midwest to New York. Becky's tour of the Big Apple includes visits to the Central Park Zoo, the F.A.O. Schwarz toy store, Chinatown and the South Street Seaport; like any good guide, she throws in suggestive statistics (the Baby Watson cheesecake operation uses more than 38,000 eggs a day). Several foldout pages present larger-scale visual extravaganzas, among them a panorama of the skyline as seen from the top of the Empire State Building, a high-rise under construction and dinosaur skeletons at the American Museum of Natural History. As an added treat, youngsters can search out Becky and her parents, who appear in each picture. This stunning book's piece de resistance is a spectacular double-page spread of New York Harbor on the Fourth of July, with fireworks exploding over the Statue of Liberty and an impressive assemblage of tall ships. A splendid tribute to the city that never sleeps.
Description from Publishers Weekly
Jakobsen's combination of descriptive, conversational text and colorful folk-art paintings brings to life a young girl's New York scenes. From the Statue of Liberty off the lower tip of Manhattan to the Museum of Natural History on West 81st Street, readers tour places and events such as the NYC Marathon, the Central Park Zoo and carousel, FAO Schwartz, Chinatown, the home of Baby Watson cheesecake, the circus at Madison Square Garden, the aircraft carrier Intrepid, South Street Seaport, and the Fourth of July fireworks over New York Harbor. Fold-out pages of the Empire State Building and a building under construction are an interesting design addition. A map appears inside both front and rear covers. Most illustrations are double paged, with a few exceptions that do not work as well because of the busy details on facing pages. Notes at the end give additional information about each site or event mentioned. Although Becky's New York is in reality only a small area of Manhattan, the marvelously detailed illustrations and the excellent range of places paints an exciting and informative picture of the best of New York City life and activity. A visual treat for children from all around the country
Description from School Library Journal
From the South Street Seaport to the Museum of Natural History, Jakobsen presents New York City, capturing all its incredible energy. She frames the text in a letter from a young New Yorker writing to a friend. The boy will be visiting soon, and the narrator describes the many sights he'll see, not all of them regular tourist stops--one of the neatest pictures is of the Baby Watson Cheesecake Bakery, whose owner puts his baby picture on every box. Jakobsen's shrewdly chosen sites get terrific treatments in her crowded folk-style art, which makes the city come alive. Whether the view is from the roof of the writer's apartment building or looking across at snow-covered Central Park, the pictures make viewers feel as if they were right there, riding on the Staten Island Ferry or staring up at the Empire State Building (a three-page fold-out spread). The book really covers a wide age range. Primary-graders will enjoy looking at the pictures, and older kids doing reports on the city should get a real feel for it through Jakobsen's art. Adults, too, will enjoy the visual visit. A map of the city appears on the endpapers.
Description from Booklist
If you happen to like New York, you just may love Kathy Jakobsen's visionof Manhattan in 'My New York.' Hers is not the real city, of course, but themetropolis of fantasy. . . . Ms. Jakobsen, a folk artist, fills her pages with panoramic paintings of familiar cityscapes (oil on canvas in the originals) that teem with color, people and urban merriment. Yet for all the dizzy activity and multitudes of faces, . . . {the book} glows with a reassuring, almost pastoral tranquillity, as if Grandma Moses and Duke Ellington might inhabit the same country after all. Of blight, you'll find nothing here. The subways are spotless, their multicultural passengers cheery and friendly. . . . Ms. Jakobsen's point is not, I think, to be nostalgic so much as to see the city through young eyes.
Description from The New York Times Book Review
Journey Around New York from A to Z
by Martha & Heather Zschock
The Zschock sisters (Journey Around Boston from A to Z) bring their series to the Big Apple, where Heather Zschock, the designer of the series, presently lives. The mallard who guided the Boston tour is replaced here by a pigeon; it appears on every page, often in costume (e.g., dressed as an orchestra conductor or wearing a fire helmet). The alphabet theme only loosely organizes the information, as alliterative sentences, not topics, appear alongside each letter. Transportation, for example, is discussed at "R": "Roebling's rope wires reach across the river"; on each spread, a large watercolor (in this case, of the Brooklyn Bridge) illustrates a detailed paragraph (here, about the construction of that bridge). An inset panel shows a related subject (the Staten Island Ferry), while in the bottom margin a detail (a subway entrance) shares space with a fun fact (the city's buses, rails and subways "transport 2.3 billion people a year all over town!"). The events of September 11 figure under "T" ("Tough times take teamwork"), where a panel showing the Twin Towers is set into a view of the Unisphere from the 1964 World's Fair, "a symbol of `peace through understanding.' "
Description from Publishers Weekly
Like the authors' Journey around Boston from A to Z, this playful tour of the Big Apple combines snippets of history with glimpses of distinctive neighborhoods, public celebrations, and major tourist attractions. A friendly looking pigeon squires young viewers from Broadway's New Victory Theater to Grand Central Station, with its "zillions of commuters" zipping beneath a starry ceiling, and other sites, stopping to pay tribute to the heroes of the World Trade Center disaster at the Unisphere in Queens and pose with two women in old-fashioned swimwear on Coney Island's beach. Multiple captions and insets enhance the large, sharply detailed paintings, and a prefatory map locates each stop along the way. With notes about New York's distant and recent past, and nearly twice as many destinations as Roxie Munro's Inside Outside Book of New York City, this is an outstanding introduction that imparts a sense of the city's diversity along with some of its grander sights. For residents and prospective visitors alike.
Description from Booklist
From the Brooklyn Bridge to Broadway, from Central Park to Chinatown, from the Macy's Parade to the Metropolitan Museum of Art -- New York City has it all! Millions of visitors from around the globe are drawn to the Big Apple year after year. Now explorers of all ages can "visit" whenever they please with Journey Around New York from A to Z. This enchanting child's-eye guide to New York excites, educates, and enthralls readers with beautiful, detailed watercolor images and a fun and accessible but sophisticated text.
A proud and perky pigeon tour guide expertly escorts readers on a beautiful circuit of the city, pointing out interesting sights and fascinating facts along the way. Each page illuminates a New York theme with catchy alliterative headlines ("Journalists jot juicy jargon" or "Fifth Avenue is famous for fashion"), mini-history lessons, and fascinating facts. Thirty-two vivid pages celebrate the vibrancy, culture, and diversity of New York City. Martha Zschock's brilliant watercolor paintings provide an abundance of cheerful, authentic detail to explore, engaging readers while they become "instant experts" on one of the world's most exciting cities.
Journey Around New York from A to Z is special because it has tremendous cross-generational appeal. Children and adults alike will thrill at this wonderful, whimsical jaunt through the alphabet and New York City. The book is also distinguished by a witty sense of humor, with its quirky pigeon-about-town narrator. The pigeon pops up on each fanciful page in surprising, amusing, and characteristically New York places. He can be found, for example, chopsticks in wing, enjoying a dim sum feast. He joins the Rockettes' kick line, appears as a balloon in the Macy's parade, rides the subway with commuters, and even turns up as conductor at Lincoln Center.
Take a Journey Around New York from A to Z! Getting around New York has never been this easy – or as much fun!
Description from Publisher
The Inside-Outside Book of New York City
By Roxie Munro
Awards:
- A New York Times Best Illustrated Book of the Year
Take a tour of the Big Apple and discover both familiar and hidden spots: inside and outside the Statue of Liberty, the American Museum of Natural History, the New York Stock Exchange, the subway station at Times Square, Madison Square Garden, St. Patrick's Cathedral, the historic Flatiron Building, and more.
Description from Publisher
New York City is the bustling home of many wonders, such as the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty and over 700 miles of subway track. These and nine other landmarks are depicted in crisp, detailed illustrations from both the outside and the inside. The penguins at the Bronx Zoo are shown as a visitor would see them in full-color, double-page paintings. On the next spread, the people are shown from the penguins' perspective, inside looking out. A relatively calm one-page, outside view of the New York Stock Exchange leads into a double-page glimpse of the frenzied trading floor. The cover and title pages are nicely used to draw children into the book, through the city jaunt, and finally to the last page where a brief but cogent and informative text describes each location viewed. This book is reminiscent of Sasek's This Is New York in terms of the city and the author/illustrator's contagious enthusiasm for it. The intricate illustrations, unusual vantage points and care for mood through detail, however, create a unique and distinguished view of New York City.
Description from School Library Journal
New York State Of Mind
By Billy Joel and Izak Zenou
"I'm taking a Greyhound on the Hudson River Line - I'm in a New York state of mind."Billy Joel's evocative lyrics invite readers to tag along as two spirited little dogs experience the energy and excitement of New York City, one of the world's most visited cities. From the "movie stars in their fancy cars" at Radio City Music Hall to Chinatown, from the Empire State Building to a Central Park carriage ride, this colorful portrait of the city's most beloved landmarks is a joyous celebration of a great American city.
Description from Publisher
Next Stop Grand Central
By Maira Kalman
"Trains are trips. And trips are adventures. And adventures are new ideas and romance and you can't ever know what in the world will happen which is exactly why you are going." This is precisely the species of serendipity that bounces and leaps through the pages of Maira Kalman's picture book Next Stop Grand Central, a charming tribute to New York's Grand Central Station by the artist whose murals currently spice up the historic terminal. Kalman--brilliant creator of Max the millionaire poet dog in Ooh-la-la (Max in Love)--not only reflects the vibrant nature of the busy hub, she paints comical portraits of the folks behind the scenes who make it all happen: ("Etha delivers the mail--a letter to Mr. Pickle cannot go to Mr. Schnikle.") We're also introduced to the people who "zip and zap and whiz" through Grand Central as passengers: ("The woman with the blue pancake hat is going to Chinatown to buy Poo Nik Tea.") Snapshots of "things you'll see" in the terminal include someone waiting patiently, someone waiting impatiently, and someone looking up. Things you won't see? Einstein sailing and the pyramids of Giza. Next Stop Grand Central is a compassionate, quirky view of a cross-section of humanity--and that, Kalman seems to be saying, is what Grand Central Station is all about.
Description from Amazon.com
At Grand Central Station, Chief of Police George Coppola finds lost people, and Mr. Chidchester, head of the Lost and Found, finds lost dogs. Marino Marino makes oyster stew, while thinking up interesting math problems. A man in a porkpie hat buys cherry pies. Maira Kalman's stylized artwork, along with entertaining text, brilliantly captures the excitement of Grand Central Station, "the busiest, fastest, biggest place there is."
Description from Publisher
Sky Scrape/City Scape: Poems of City Life
By Jane Yolen (Editor)
This worthy successor to Lee Bennett Hopkins's The City Spreads Its Wings offers readers a glorious glimpse of New York City in particular and urban centers in general. Lively chalk-and-pastel scenesstreets, parks, crowdsappear on every page with poetry that celebrates one aspect of city life. Langston Hughes, Judith Thurman, Felice Holman, and Ann Turner are among the anthologized poets. Norma Farber's "Manhattan Lullaby" ("Lulled by rumble, babble, beep/let these little children sleep/let these city girls and boys/dream a music in their noise/hear a tune their city plucks/up from buses, up from trucks...") is a particularly memorable selection. A dynamic hymn to what Lucille Clifton refers to as "the inner city/ or/like we call it/ home."
Description from School Library Journal
Skyscrapers, subways, and crowded streets are the settings for the 25 poems and pictures in this anthology. The pages are packed with people, buildings, garbage, traffic. Everything is bursting with movement, light, and sound. Some poems have such power and energy: in Carl Sandburg's pounding "Prayers of Steel," in Ann Turner's jump-rope girl ("more like she stood still and the rope flew around her" ), in Lee Bennett Hopkins' flashing neon signs ("like fireworks fighting hard to explode" ). There are connections, too: in Betsy Hearne's "Commuters" swaying from straps; in Lilian Moore's "Pigeons" commuting from sidewalk to ledge; in Lucille Clifton's inner city ("or like we call it / home" ). From the first double-page spread of buildings that scrape the sky, to the trucks that roar out of the tunnels, the images have a physical immediacy and the words have a rhythm that will appeal to the elementary grades. Condon's rousing illustrations in chalk and oil pastel, filled with light and color, express the rumble and rush of city life. Like Adoff's Street Music: City Poems, this will be welcome in classrooms and libraries across the country, an exciting companion to all the volumes of nature poetry.
Description from Booklist
New York City
(Rookie Read-About Geography)
By David F. Marx
I teach second graders in Brooklyn and this is one of the few nonfiction books about New York city on their reading level! I was happy to add it to our classroom library. There are color photographs accompanied by simple text. It's perfect for young children to use for research, or just read up on their own about New York City.
Description from Amazon.com Customer Review
Good Morning, City
By Elaine Moore
As the sun rises, a city comes to life. People go to work, subways rumble, children set off for school, a tall ship enters the harbor, and shops open for business. Even though a city never sleeps, morning is a magical time of renewal, and william Low's subtle, emotion-filled illustrations capture the beautiful moments of a new day. Many of the illustrations are based on scenes from New York City, but this book celebrates what is magical about every great city.
Description from Publisher
Alphabet City
By Stephen T. Johnson
Awards:
- A 1996 Caldecott Honor book
This is hardly an alphabet book for preschoolers; some of the depictions of letters may stump older kids (or even adults!). Nevertheless, the artwork is quite amazing. At first glance, or even second, the art appears to be photographs, such is the beautiful clarity of the pictures. However, the paintings are actually done in pastels, watercolors, gouache, and charcoal on hot pressed watercolor paper. The images themselves, one to a page, with each forming a letter of the alphabet, are urban: A is a construction sawhorse; P, a handrail in the subway; Z, a building's fire escape. Some of the pictures, especially those that use negative space, are harder to spot. Still, this is sure to intrigue, and art teachers, especially, will enjoy finding ways to use such a unique offering.
Description from Booklist
Beginning with the A formed by a construction site's sawhorse and ending with the Z found in the angle of a fire escape, Johnson draws viewers' eyes to tiny details within everyday objects to find letters. In this wordless tour of sights from Times Square to the Brooklyn Bridge, he invites young and old alike to take a new look at familiar surroundings, discovering the alphabet without ever looking in a book or reading from a sign. Conceived in the tradition of Ann Jonas's work, especially The Thirteenth Clue, Johnson's pastel, watercolor, gouache, and charcoal paintings are much more realistic than his illustrations for The Samurai's Daughter; in fact, they are almost photographic in appearance. Some of the images are both clever and incredibly clear, e.g., the E found in the sideways view of a traffic light. Others, such as the C in the rose window of a Gothic church, are more obscure. Nevertheless, all of the paintings are beautifully executed and exhibit a true sense of artistic vision. While parents or teachers might assume from the title that this is a traditional alphabet book, they should be encouraged to look at it as an art book. It's sure to inspire older children to venture out on their own walks to discover the alphabet in the familiar objects of their own hometowns.
Description from School Library Journal
The scenes of New York City look like photographs, but they are actually realistic paintings that reveal the alphabet in a most unusual way. For example the letter "G" shows up in the grill work of lamppost and an "H" appears within a scene of two buildings connected by an walkway. It is intriguing and requires a bit of sophistication on the part of the reader.
Description from Children's Literature
City by Numbers
By Stephen T. Johnson
In this wordless companion to Alphabet City, Johnson joins the likes of Tana Hoban, Arlene Alda, and Donald Crews in his attraction to the numbers, letters, shapes, and compositions found in the architecture and infrastructures of outdoor places and public spaces. Paintings show numerals 121 that are camouflaged by the urban cityscapes in which they exist. Discovering each number is an exercise in visual literacy: 4 is found in the lines of the Manhattan Bridge at sunset, 8 is formed by the round rims of adjoining trash bins, a 15 hides in the cracked mortar between bricks. Some numbers occur in the lines, curves, and curlicues of existing architecture, such as an iron gate, a fire escape, a cornice; others are created by negative space, for example, between stones on a snowy walkway or in the scraped surface and papery patches of a building's peeling paint. The subjects are similar to those found in the first book, although the colors, this time, are wintry and more somber. Children will relish the game of locating numbers, while adults will pause over Johnson's deliberate use of shape and color to influence mood.
Description from Kirkus Reviews
In his newest creation Johnson does for numbers what he did for letters in Alphabet City. In and around New York City, Johnson explores angles, circles, squares, and intersecting lines from unusual perspectives. The number five emerges form the shadow of branches on a brick wall, trash baskets clearly reveal the number eight, and two tall smoke stacks are easily recognizable as the number eleven. In each of the stunning illustrations, visual acuity is the key. Some of the numbers are not readily discernible but the imaginative observer who looks for the unusual will be rewarded. Insightful, playful, poetic, this picture book will delight older children and art students of all ages.
Description from Children's Literature
Draw Along With Stuart Little in New York City
Visit Stuart Little and his family, and join in a fun-filled trip around the city! Young artists will love following Stuart’s adventures, inspired by Columbia Pictures’ engaging film Stuart Little. And now they can learn to draw their favorite things--from cats and cars to boats and ice cream! The drawing pad is preprinted with easy-to-follow, how-to-draw steps and simple line drawings that children can trace. Learning to draw has never been so much fun!
Description from Publisher
C Is for City
By Nikki Grimes
City is the operative word in this hustling, bustling, urban ABC book. It begins, "A is for arcade or ads for Apartments / on short streets with alleys alive with stray pets. / A is for Afghans named after their owners / who drive them to art shows in silver Corvettes." Cummings' lively cartoonish illustrations depict all of these a words, plus countless more tucked in for the keen-eyed reader. (A key in the back of the book lists all illustrated objects.) The rhymes themselves are quite clever and packed with vocabulary-expanding images. Each illustration is a hearty slice of urban life, with all its intersecting dramas and scenes within scenes. At a diner, for instance, four different dramas play out, including a doorman jumping double-Dutch and a teen flirting with the waitress. Certainly city children will identify with the book, but any child should find in its busy illustrations much worth discussing or poring over alone.
Description from Booklist
Gorgeous, vivid color illustrations are liberal embellishments to this alphabet rhyme of big city life. Urban-oriented kids will especially appreciate these familiar associations; from "K is for kosher shops/selling knishes" to "P is for playground or Pop's Pizzeria".
Description from Midwest Book Review
In this rhyming alphabet book, each letter represents different New York City experiencese.g., "A is for arcade or ads for apartments.../B is for butcher or/breakfast with bagels/or block-party bands/out on hot summer nights. C is for city/or cabbies named Clarence/or cool cats who chat/under boulevard lights." Many of the arresting images reflect the ethnic, religious, and economic diversity of urban life. From a sleek sports car with a bejeweled Afghan to tawdry fortune tellers and other entertainers, a wide range of people and neighborhoods are depicted. The rhythm of the verses is also varied, but it is always interesting and right on target for the audience. Illustrations in vivid, neon colors suggest the electricity and brashness of a loud city with its hard edges as well as the teeming population. In addition to the letter-specific items mentioned, others are incorporated into the pictures for sharp-eyed viewers to find. An entertaining selection along the lines of "A my name is Alice," set in the Big Apple.
Description from School Library Journal
New York City Buildings
By Ann Mace
Some of the world's most fascinating urban architecture is in New York City. (nonfiction)
Description from Publisher
Fine close-up photos of buildings found in New York are described in simple text: one is round, another is narrow, a third is guarded by lions. While the buildings are identified as the Guggenheim Museum, the United Nations, and the N.Y. Public Library on a map on the endpaper, a line of text per page concentrates on the building's attributes. Each book in the "Books for Young Learners" series is keyed to Emergent, Early, or Fluent readers, a scale which spans K-2 readers. In addition, the key indicates supported (S), guided (G), or independent (I) for each of these stages. Natural word choice and pictures work closely to support new and young readers in practicing skills with an adult or independently. This book supplies plenty of opportunities to talk about skylines, buildings, and shapes, and in this case, to view the former World Trade Towers, which are pictured as "very, very tall."
Description from Children's Literature
The Ultimate Sticker Books: New York
Children can create their own picture books as they learn about two exciting cities, their sights, customs, and culture. Each book is packed with informative text and 70 colorful, self-adhesive photo-stickers. Full color. plus 4 pages of stickers.
Description from Publisher
Travels with MAX to New York City
By Nancy Ann Van Wie
Filled with facts, puzzles, riddles and brain teasers, Travels with MAX to New York City is a fun and educational travel guide for young children. With the assistance of their tour guide MAX, a V.I.K. (Very Important Koala), children learn the history of New York City and visit famous attractions such as the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Bronx Zoo, Yankee Stadium, museums and much more!
Description from Publisher
Citybook
By Shelley Rotner & Ken Kreisler
Loosely organized around Kevin's trip to the city, the sometimes rhyming text elaborates on the variety of things he enjoys doing there. Crisp, brightly colored photographs capture unusual views of people and places that will intrigue young children. The bold, up-to-date look at New York City is a visual treat and will please city dwellers and visitors alike.
Description from Horn Book
What's the word for this glossy picture book of big-city sights? Colorful! A thin framework of story ("Kevin loved to visit the city. There was so much to see") soon gives way to quick phrases naming what Kevin saw: "Painted walls / and neon signs. / Long / lines." The text slips in and out of rhyme; sometimes it works well with the photos, and sometimes it seems extraneous. And while the inclusion of young Kevin in the photographs gives kids a person to identify with, some of those pictures have a staged look. Clear and vivid, the photos are the book's strong point, offering young children a focal point for talking about the city at home or in a preschool setting.
Description from Booklist
Thoughtful compositions and uncommon settings mark this vibrant collection of megalopolitan photographs--here, the teeming streets of New York City provide the setting. A boy chats on one of three pay telephones above which images of the Simpsons and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles stare out from a graffiti-scarred wall; a vivid kaleidoscope of neon signs touts "Party Cake" and "Erasmo's Laundry"; a speeding subway car becomes little more than a green-streaked blur. With seldom more than four words to a spread, the minimal text ranges from imaginative ("Mimes, music, museums" identifies a cheery gamin, a saxophone player, a dino likeness) to captions short on inspiration ("So many sights. /So many lights"). But here the photo's the thing, and many highlight arresting images beyond the usual big-city travelogue--though a few are overly dark. A handsome introduction to a unique urban landscape.
Description from Publishers Weekly
This colorful photo essay presents a child's-eye view of New York City, from fountains and flags to taxis and roller blades. Full-page, crystal-clear pictures of ethnic markets, neon signs, street scenes, parks and museums, and a multitude of lights fairly leap from the pages, presenting the broad spectrum of urban activities. The dust cover itself invites readers to look, see, and learn. The minimal rhyming text of one to three words on most pages is concise and easy to read. A vibrant introduction to the city's many sights and sounds.
Description from School Library Journal
Cut and Assemble New York Harbor
By Albert Gary Smith
Expertly designed, beautifully illustrated panorama includes Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, skyscrapers, tugboats, Staten Island Ferry, rivers, bay, much more. Complete step-by-step instructions and diagrams explain how to cut, fold and assemble three-dimensional pieces and backdrop scenes of the glorious New York skyline.
Description from Publisher
New York City Tattoos
By Eric Gottesman
Full-length portrait of othe Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building towering over other skyscrapers, the Brooklyn Bridge at night, and 2 other colorful, large-size tattoos.
Description from Publisher
Taxi Driver!: Dashing Around New York City
By Robyn Brode
In this series for younger boys and girls, each book features cartoon-style illustrations superimposed on vivid full-color photos that show different people in different cultures using different means of travel. The cartoons complementing each photo depict kids with their parents. Each parent is a vehicle driver of one kind or another—but the vehicle type depends entirely on where the story takes place! For instance, Maria is a little girl whose mother is a taxi driver in bustling New York City. Other kids and their parents live in Alaska, and travel by dog sled . . . or in a tropical rain forest, where touring visitors are taken on a safari ... or in the bush country of Australia's Outback, where the most common way for people to go places is to fly around in light aircraft. The photos on every page capture the contrasting scenic backgrounds and highly individual atmospheres of each book's place. Meanwhile, boys and girls will identify with the cartoon illustrations of kids and parents, as they learn a little bit about how people live and travel in different places. Early-grade teachers will value these wonderfully illustrated books as fine introductions to social studies.
Description from Publisher
Books for Older Readers
New York City
By Deborah Kent
Great cities represent the crossroads of a country's politics, culture, and social community. Cities of the World gives students the opportunity to explore the world's urban centers without ever leaving the classroom. Readers will also investigate cities' attempts to solve the universal urban problems of unemployment, pollution, and crime. Each book presents a broad but detailed picture of societies and their people. Each book includes maps, a list of famous landmarks, a "Fast Facts" section, a glossary, and an index.
Description from Publisher
Destination New York
By Linda Tagliaferro
One in the series, "Port Cities of North America," this book introduces the reader to the changes in shipping that have occurred during New York's 350 year-history. From the days of the Dutch West India Company to the rise of containerized cargo, the port has played a vital role in the commerce of the eastern U.S. and parts of Canada. Following the thorough treatment of this subject, the book provides a glimpse into the cosmopolitan life of the Big Apple. A glossary, pronunciation guide and index are provided. Photographs and maps are plentiful.
Description from Children's Literature
Weegee's New York Postcard Book
By Paul Hutchens
Weegee held a mirror up to New York and revealed a city that was provocative and gripping, while at the same time managing to capture the City's heart.
Description from Miles Barth, International Center of Photography
New York City: Downtown America
By Barbara Johnston Adams
Children can take a grand tour of New York City without leaving home. The book highlights places of special interest through full-color photographs, a list of places to visit, a historical time line, and a map.
Description from Publisher
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Books for Beginning Readers |
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My New York By Kathy Jakobsen |
A tour of ``my favorite places,'' described in a letter from Becky to a friend who's moving to New York from the Midwest. The child's-eye view suggests a good balance of topics--a flea market and the subway, as well as Manhattan's familiar attractions. Folk-artist Jakobsen fills her precise illustrations with details to explore, employing different points of view to good advantage: the Empire State Building in perspective from the street (sideways on a foldout page) plus a panorama from its top on the verso; elevated views of the N.Y.C. Marathon and Chinatown. A vertical foldout accommodates the Natural History Museum's remarkably tall, slender barosaurus. The illustrations are busy but nicely orchestrated, with bright, attractively stylized forms and figures mingling on every spread, plus Becky--in the same attire regardless of season--to be discovered on each. Other pictorial visits to New York include Munro's Inside-Outside book; this one is distinguished by its wealth of cheerful, authentic detail and pleasingly decorative style. Endpaper map.
From the South Street Seaport to the Museum of Natural History, Jacobsen presents New York City, capturing all its incredible energy. She frames the text in a letter from a young New Yorker writing to a friend. The boy will be visiting soon, and the narrator describes the many sights he'll see, not all of them regular tourist stops. The book really covers a wide age range. Primary-graders will enjoy looking at pictures, and older kids doing reports on the city should get a real feel for it through Jacobsen's art. A gifted folk artist, Jakobsen (illustrator of Reeve Lindbergh's Johnny Appleseed) here conducts a thoroughly enjoyable and informative excursion through Manhattan. Her fastidiously detailed oil paintings illustrate a chatty letter written by a girl named Becky to a friend who will soon be moving from the Midwest to New York. Becky's tour of the Big Apple includes visits to the Central Park Zoo, the F.A.O. Schwarz toy store, Chinatown and the South Street Seaport; like any good guide, she throws in suggestive statistics (the Baby Watson cheesecake operation uses more than 38,000 eggs a day). Several foldout pages present larger-scale visual extravaganzas, among them a panorama of the skyline as seen from the top of the Empire State Building, a high-rise under construction and dinosaur skeletons at the American Museum of Natural History. As an added treat, youngsters can search out Becky and her parents, who appear in each picture. This stunning book's piece de resistance is a spectacular double-page spread of New York Harbor on the Fourth of July, with fireworks exploding over the Statue of Liberty and an impressive assemblage of tall ships. A splendid tribute to the city that never sleeps. Jakobsen's combination of descriptive, conversational text and colorful folk-art paintings brings to life a young girl's New York scenes. From the Statue of Liberty off the lower tip of Manhattan to the Museum of Natural History on West 81st Street, readers tour places and events such as the NYC Marathon, the Central Park Zoo and carousel, FAO Schwartz, Chinatown, the home of Baby Watson cheesecake, the circus at Madison Square Garden, the aircraft carrier Intrepid, South Street Seaport, and the Fourth of July fireworks over New York Harbor. Fold-out pages of the Empire State Building and a building under construction are an interesting design addition. A map appears inside both front and rear covers. Most illustrations are double paged, with a few exceptions that do not work as well because of the busy details on facing pages. Notes at the end give additional information about each site or event mentioned. Although Becky's New York is in reality only a small area of Manhattan, the marvelously detailed illustrations and the excellent range of places paints an exciting and informative picture of the best of New York City life and activity. A visual treat for children from all around the country From the South Street Seaport to the Museum of Natural History, Jakobsen presents New York City, capturing all its incredible energy. She frames the text in a letter from a young New Yorker writing to a friend. The boy will be visiting soon, and the narrator describes the many sights he'll see, not all of them regular tourist stops--one of the neatest pictures is of the Baby Watson Cheesecake Bakery, whose owner puts his baby picture on every box. Jakobsen's shrewdly chosen sites get terrific treatments in her crowded folk-style art, which makes the city come alive. Whether the view is from the roof of the writer's apartment building or looking across at snow-covered Central Park, the pictures make viewers feel as if they were right there, riding on the Staten Island Ferry or staring up at the Empire State Building (a three-page fold-out spread). The book really covers a wide age range. Primary-graders will enjoy looking at the pictures, and older kids doing reports on the city should get a real feel for it through Jakobsen's art. Adults, too, will enjoy the visual visit. A map of the city appears on the endpapers. If you happen to like New York, you just may love Kathy Jakobsen's visionof Manhattan in 'My New York.' Hers is not the real city, of course, but themetropolis of fantasy. . . . Ms. Jakobsen, a folk artist, fills her pages with panoramic paintings of familiar cityscapes (oil on canvas in the originals) that teem with color, people and urban merriment. Yet for all the dizzy activity and multitudes of faces, . . . {the book} glows with a reassuring, almost pastoral tranquillity, as if Grandma Moses and Duke Ellington might inhabit the same country after all. Of blight, you'll find nothing here. The subways are spotless, their multicultural passengers cheery and friendly. . . . Ms. Jakobsen's point is not, I think, to be nostalgic so much as to see the city through young eyes. |
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Journey Around New York from A to Z by Martha & Heather Zschock |
The Zschock sisters (Journey Around Boston from A to Z) bring their series to the Big Apple, where Heather Zschock, the designer of the series, presently lives. The mallard who guided the Boston tour is replaced here by a pigeon; it appears on every page, often in costume (e.g., dressed as an orchestra conductor or wearing a fire helmet). The alphabet theme only loosely organizes the information, as alliterative sentences, not topics, appear alongside each letter. Transportation, for example, is discussed at "R": "Roebling's rope wires reach across the river"; on each spread, a large watercolor (in this case, of the Brooklyn Bridge) illustrates a detailed paragraph (here, about the construction of that bridge). An inset panel shows a related subject (the Staten Island Ferry), while in the bottom margin a detail (a subway entrance) shares space with a fun fact (the city's buses, rails and subways "transport 2.3 billion people a year all over town!"). The events of September 11 figure under "T" ("Tough times take teamwork"), where a panel showing the Twin Towers is set into a view of the Unisphere from the 1964 World's Fair, "a symbol of `peace through understanding.' "
Like the authors' Journey around Boston from A to Z, this playful tour of the Big Apple combines snippets of history with glimpses of distinctive neighborhoods, public celebrations, and major tourist attractions. A friendly looking pigeon squires young viewers from Broadway's New Victory Theater to Grand Central Station, with its "zillions of commuters" zipping beneath a starry ceiling, and other sites, stopping to pay tribute to the heroes of the World Trade Center disaster at the Unisphere in Queens and pose with two women in old-fashioned swimwear on Coney Island's beach. Multiple captions and insets enhance the large, sharply detailed paintings, and a prefatory map locates each stop along the way. With notes about New York's distant and recent past, and nearly twice as many destinations as Roxie Munro's Inside Outside Book of New York City, this is an outstanding introduction that imparts a sense of the city's diversity along with some of its grander sights. For residents and prospective visitors alike. From the Brooklyn Bridge to Broadway, from Central Park to Chinatown, from the Macy's Parade to the Metropolitan Museum of Art -- New York City has it all! Millions of visitors from around the globe are drawn to the Big Apple year after year. Now explorers of all ages can "visit" whenever they please with Journey Around New York from A to Z. This enchanting child's-eye guide to New York excites, educates, and enthralls readers with beautiful, detailed watercolor images and a fun and accessible but sophisticated text. A proud and perky pigeon tour guide expertly escorts readers on a beautiful circuit of the city, pointing out interesting sights and fascinating facts along the way. Each page illuminates a New York theme with catchy alliterative headlines ("Journalists jot juicy jargon" or "Fifth Avenue is famous for fashion"), mini-history lessons, and fascinating facts. Thirty-two vivid pages celebrate the vibrancy, culture, and diversity of New York City. Martha Zschock's brilliant watercolor paintings provide an abundance of cheerful, authentic detail to explore, engaging readers while they become "instant experts" on one of the world's most exciting cities. Journey Around New York from A to Z is special because it has tremendous cross-generational appeal. Children and adults alike will thrill at this wonderful, whimsical jaunt through the alphabet and New York City. The book is also distinguished by a witty sense of humor, with its quirky pigeon-about-town narrator. The pigeon pops up on each fanciful page in surprising, amusing, and characteristically New York places. He can be found, for example, chopsticks in wing, enjoying a dim sum feast. He joins the Rockettes' kick line, appears as a balloon in the Macy's parade, rides the subway with commuters, and even turns up as conductor at Lincoln Center. Take a Journey Around New York from A to Z! Getting around New York has never been this easy – or as much fun! |
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The Inside-Outside Book of New York City By Roxie Munro |
Awards:
Take a tour of the Big Apple and discover both familiar and hidden spots: inside and outside the Statue of Liberty, the American Museum of Natural History, the New York Stock Exchange, the subway station at Times Square, Madison Square Garden, St. Patrick's Cathedral, the historic Flatiron Building, and more.
New York City is the bustling home of many wonders, such as the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty and over 700 miles of subway track. These and nine other landmarks are depicted in crisp, detailed illustrations from both the outside and the inside. The penguins at the Bronx Zoo are shown as a visitor would see them in full-color, double-page paintings. On the next spread, the people are shown from the penguins' perspective, inside looking out. A relatively calm one-page, outside view of the New York Stock Exchange leads into a double-page glimpse of the frenzied trading floor. The cover and title pages are nicely used to draw children into the book, through the city jaunt, and finally to the last page where a brief but cogent and informative text describes each location viewed. This book is reminiscent of Sasek's This Is New York in terms of the city and the author/illustrator's contagious enthusiasm for it. The intricate illustrations, unusual vantage points and care for mood through detail, however, create a unique and distinguished view of New York City. |
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New York State Of Mind By Billy Joel and Izak Zenou |
"I'm taking a Greyhound on the Hudson River Line - I'm in a New York state of mind."Billy Joel's evocative lyrics invite readers to tag along as two spirited little dogs experience the energy and excitement of New York City, one of the world's most visited cities. From the "movie stars in their fancy cars" at Radio City Music Hall to Chinatown, from the Empire State Building to a Central Park carriage ride, this colorful portrait of the city's most beloved landmarks is a joyous celebration of a great American city.
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Next Stop Grand Central By Maira Kalman |
"Trains are trips. And trips are adventures. And adventures are new ideas and romance and you can't ever know what in the world will happen which is exactly why you are going." This is precisely the species of serendipity that bounces and leaps through the pages of Maira Kalman's picture book Next Stop Grand Central, a charming tribute to New York's Grand Central Station by the artist whose murals currently spice up the historic terminal. Kalman--brilliant creator of Max the millionaire poet dog in Ooh-la-la (Max in Love)--not only reflects the vibrant nature of the busy hub, she paints comical portraits of the folks behind the scenes who make it all happen: ("Etha delivers the mail--a letter to Mr. Pickle cannot go to Mr. Schnikle.") We're also introduced to the people who "zip and zap and whiz" through Grand Central as passengers: ("The woman with the blue pancake hat is going to Chinatown to buy Poo Nik Tea.") Snapshots of "things you'll see" in the terminal include someone waiting patiently, someone waiting impatiently, and someone looking up. Things you won't see? Einstein sailing and the pyramids of Giza. Next Stop Grand Central is a compassionate, quirky view of a cross-section of humanity--and that, Kalman seems to be saying, is what Grand Central Station is all about.
At Grand Central Station, Chief of Police George Coppola finds lost people, and Mr. Chidchester, head of the Lost and Found, finds lost dogs. Marino Marino makes oyster stew, while thinking up interesting math problems. A man in a porkpie hat buys cherry pies. Maira Kalman's stylized artwork, along with entertaining text, brilliantly captures the excitement of Grand Central Station, "the busiest, fastest, biggest place there is." |
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Sky Scrape/City Scape: Poems of City Life By Jane Yolen (Editor) |
This worthy successor to Lee Bennett Hopkins's The City Spreads Its Wings offers readers a glorious glimpse of New York City in particular and urban centers in general. Lively chalk-and-pastel scenesstreets, parks, crowdsappear on every page with poetry that celebrates one aspect of city life. Langston Hughes, Judith Thurman, Felice Holman, and Ann Turner are among the anthologized poets. Norma Farber's "Manhattan Lullaby" ("Lulled by rumble, babble, beep/let these little children sleep/let these city girls and boys/dream a music in their noise/hear a tune their city plucks/up from buses, up from trucks...") is a particularly memorable selection. A dynamic hymn to what Lucille Clifton refers to as "the inner city/ or/like we call it/ home."
Skyscrapers, subways, and crowded streets are the settings for the 25 poems and pictures in this anthology. The pages are packed with people, buildings, garbage, traffic. Everything is bursting with movement, light, and sound. Some poems have such power and energy: in Carl Sandburg's pounding "Prayers of Steel," in Ann Turner's jump-rope girl ("more like she stood still and the rope flew around her" ), in Lee Bennett Hopkins' flashing neon signs ("like fireworks fighting hard to explode" ). There are connections, too: in Betsy Hearne's "Commuters" swaying from straps; in Lilian Moore's "Pigeons" commuting from sidewalk to ledge; in Lucille Clifton's inner city ("or like we call it / home" ). From the first double-page spread of buildings that scrape the sky, to the trucks that roar out of the tunnels, the images have a physical immediacy and the words have a rhythm that will appeal to the elementary grades. Condon's rousing illustrations in chalk and oil pastel, filled with light and color, express the rumble and rush of city life. Like Adoff's Street Music: City Poems, this will be welcome in classrooms and libraries across the country, an exciting companion to all the volumes of nature poetry. |
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New York City (Rookie Read-About Geography) By David F. Marx |
I teach second graders in Brooklyn and this is one of the few nonfiction books about New York city on their reading level! I was happy to add it to our classroom library. There are color photographs accompanied by simple text. It's perfect for young children to use for research, or just read up on their own about New York City.
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Good Morning, City By Elaine Moore |
As the sun rises, a city comes to life. People go to work, subways rumble, children set off for school, a tall ship enters the harbor, and shops open for business. Even though a city never sleeps, morning is a magical time of renewal, and william Low's subtle, emotion-filled illustrations capture the beautiful moments of a new day. Many of the illustrations are based on scenes from New York City, but this book celebrates what is magical about every great city.
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Alphabet City By Stephen T. Johnson |
Awards:
This is hardly an alphabet book for preschoolers; some of the depictions of letters may stump older kids (or even adults!). Nevertheless, the artwork is quite amazing. At first glance, or even second, the art appears to be photographs, such is the beautiful clarity of the pictures. However, the paintings are actually done in pastels, watercolors, gouache, and charcoal on hot pressed watercolor paper. The images themselves, one to a page, with each forming a letter of the alphabet, are urban: A is a construction sawhorse; P, a handrail in the subway; Z, a building's fire escape. Some of the pictures, especially those that use negative space, are harder to spot. Still, this is sure to intrigue, and art teachers, especially, will enjoy finding ways to use such a unique offering.
Beginning with the A formed by a construction site's sawhorse and ending with the Z found in the angle of a fire escape, Johnson draws viewers' eyes to tiny details within everyday objects to find letters. In this wordless tour of sights from Times Square to the Brooklyn Bridge, he invites young and old alike to take a new look at familiar surroundings, discovering the alphabet without ever looking in a book or reading from a sign. Conceived in the tradition of Ann Jonas's work, especially The Thirteenth Clue, Johnson's pastel, watercolor, gouache, and charcoal paintings are much more realistic than his illustrations for The Samurai's Daughter; in fact, they are almost photographic in appearance. Some of the images are both clever and incredibly clear, e.g., the E found in the sideways view of a traffic light. Others, such as the C in the rose window of a Gothic church, are more obscure. Nevertheless, all of the paintings are beautifully executed and exhibit a true sense of artistic vision. While parents or teachers might assume from the title that this is a traditional alphabet book, they should be encouraged to look at it as an art book. It's sure to inspire older children to venture out on their own walks to discover the alphabet in the familiar objects of their own hometowns. The scenes of New York City look like photographs, but they are actually realistic paintings that reveal the alphabet in a most unusual way. For example the letter "G" shows up in the grill work of lamppost and an "H" appears within a scene of two buildings connected by an walkway. It is intriguing and requires a bit of sophistication on the part of the reader. |
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City by Numbers By Stephen T. Johnson |
In this wordless companion to Alphabet City, Johnson joins the likes of Tana Hoban, Arlene Alda, and Donald Crews in his attraction to the numbers, letters, shapes, and compositions found in the architecture and infrastructures of outdoor places and public spaces. Paintings show numerals 121 that are camouflaged by the urban cityscapes in which they exist. Discovering each number is an exercise in visual literacy: 4 is found in the lines of the Manhattan Bridge at sunset, 8 is formed by the round rims of adjoining trash bins, a 15 hides in the cracked mortar between bricks. Some numbers occur in the lines, curves, and curlicues of existing architecture, such as an iron gate, a fire escape, a cornice; others are created by negative space, for example, between stones on a snowy walkway or in the scraped surface and papery patches of a building's peeling paint. The subjects are similar to those found in the first book, although the colors, this time, are wintry and more somber. Children will relish the game of locating numbers, while adults will pause over Johnson's deliberate use of shape and color to influence mood.
In his newest creation Johnson does for numbers what he did for letters in Alphabet City. In and around New York City, Johnson explores angles, circles, squares, and intersecting lines from unusual perspectives. The number five emerges form the shadow of branches on a brick wall, trash baskets clearly reveal the number eight, and two tall smoke stacks are easily recognizable as the number eleven. In each of the stunning illustrations, visual acuity is the key. Some of the numbers are not readily discernible but the imaginative observer who looks for the unusual will be rewarded. Insightful, playful, poetic, this picture book will delight older children and art students of all ages. |
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Draw Along With Stuart Little in New York City |
Visit Stuart Little and his family, and join in a fun-filled trip around the city! Young artists will love following Stuart’s adventures, inspired by Columbia Pictures’ engaging film Stuart Little. And now they can learn to draw their favorite things--from cats and cars to boats and ice cream! The drawing pad is preprinted with easy-to-follow, how-to-draw steps and simple line drawings that children can trace. Learning to draw has never been so much fun!
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C Is for City By Nikki Grimes |
City is the operative word in this hustling, bustling, urban ABC book. It begins, "A is for arcade or ads for Apartments / on short streets with alleys alive with stray pets. / A is for Afghans named after their owners / who drive them to art shows in silver Corvettes." Cummings' lively cartoonish illustrations depict all of these a words, plus countless more tucked in for the keen-eyed reader. (A key in the back of the book lists all illustrated objects.) The rhymes themselves are quite clever and packed with vocabulary-expanding images. Each illustration is a hearty slice of urban life, with all its intersecting dramas and scenes within scenes. At a diner, for instance, four different dramas play out, including a doorman jumping double-Dutch and a teen flirting with the waitress. Certainly city children will identify with the book, but any child should find in its busy illustrations much worth discussing or poring over alone.
Gorgeous, vivid color illustrations are liberal embellishments to this alphabet rhyme of big city life. Urban-oriented kids will especially appreciate these familiar associations; from "K is for kosher shops/selling knishes" to "P is for playground or Pop's Pizzeria". In this rhyming alphabet book, each letter represents different New York City experiencese.g., "A is for arcade or ads for apartments.../B is for butcher or/breakfast with bagels/or block-party bands/out on hot summer nights. C is for city/or cabbies named Clarence/or cool cats who chat/under boulevard lights." Many of the arresting images reflect the ethnic, religious, and economic diversity of urban life. From a sleek sports car with a bejeweled Afghan to tawdry fortune tellers and other entertainers, a wide range of people and neighborhoods are depicted. The rhythm of the verses is also varied, but it is always interesting and right on target for the audience. Illustrations in vivid, neon colors suggest the electricity and brashness of a loud city with its hard edges as well as the teeming population. In addition to the letter-specific items mentioned, others are incorporated into the pictures for sharp-eyed viewers to find. An entertaining selection along the lines of "A my name is Alice," set in the Big Apple. |
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New York City Buildings By Ann Mace |
Some of the world's most fascinating urban architecture is in New York City. (nonfiction)
Fine close-up photos of buildings found in New York are described in simple text: one is round, another is narrow, a third is guarded by lions. While the buildings are identified as the Guggenheim Museum, the United Nations, and the N.Y. Public Library on a map on the endpaper, a line of text per page concentrates on the building's attributes. Each book in the "Books for Young Learners" series is keyed to Emergent, Early, or Fluent readers, a scale which spans K-2 readers. In addition, the key indicates supported (S), guided (G), or independent (I) for each of these stages. Natural word choice and pictures work closely to support new and young readers in practicing skills with an adult or independently. This book supplies plenty of opportunities to talk about skylines, buildings, and shapes, and in this case, to view the former World Trade Towers, which are pictured as "very, very tall." |
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The Ultimate Sticker Books: New York |
Children can create their own picture books as they learn about two exciting cities, their sights, customs, and culture. Each book is packed with informative text and 70 colorful, self-adhesive photo-stickers. Full color. plus 4 pages of stickers.
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Travels with MAX to New York City By Nancy Ann Van Wie |
Filled with facts, puzzles, riddles and brain teasers, Travels with MAX to New York City is a fun and educational travel guide for young children. With the assistance of their tour guide MAX, a V.I.K. (Very Important Koala), children learn the history of New York City and visit famous attractions such as the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Bronx Zoo, Yankee Stadium, museums and much more!
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Citybook By Shelley Rotner & Ken Kreisler |
Loosely organized around Kevin's trip to the city, the sometimes rhyming text elaborates on the variety of things he enjoys doing there. Crisp, brightly colored photographs capture unusual views of people and places that will intrigue young children. The bold, up-to-date look at New York City is a visual treat and will please city dwellers and visitors alike.
What's the word for this glossy picture book of big-city sights? Colorful! A thin framework of story ("Kevin loved to visit the city. There was so much to see") soon gives way to quick phrases naming what Kevin saw: "Painted walls / and neon signs. / Long / lines." The text slips in and out of rhyme; sometimes it works well with the photos, and sometimes it seems extraneous. And while the inclusion of young Kevin in the photographs gives kids a person to identify with, some of those pictures have a staged look. Clear and vivid, the photos are the book's strong point, offering young children a focal point for talking about the city at home or in a preschool setting. Thoughtful compositions and uncommon settings mark this vibrant collection of megalopolitan photographs--here, the teeming streets of New York City provide the setting. A boy chats on one of three pay telephones above which images of the Simpsons and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles stare out from a graffiti-scarred wall; a vivid kaleidoscope of neon signs touts "Party Cake" and "Erasmo's Laundry"; a speeding subway car becomes little more than a green-streaked blur. With seldom more than four words to a spread, the minimal text ranges from imaginative ("Mimes, music, museums" identifies a cheery gamin, a saxophone player, a dino likeness) to captions short on inspiration ("So many sights. /So many lights"). But here the photo's the thing, and many highlight arresting images beyond the usual big-city travelogue--though a few are overly dark. A handsome introduction to a unique urban landscape. This colorful photo essay presents a child's-eye view of New York City, from fountains and flags to taxis and roller blades. Full-page, crystal-clear pictures of ethnic markets, neon signs, street scenes, parks and museums, and a multitude of lights fairly leap from the pages, presenting the broad spectrum of urban activities. The dust cover itself invites readers to look, see, and learn. The minimal rhyming text of one to three words on most pages is concise and easy to read. A vibrant introduction to the city's many sights and sounds. |
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Cut and Assemble New York Harbor By Albert Gary Smith |
Expertly designed, beautifully illustrated panorama includes Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, skyscrapers, tugboats, Staten Island Ferry, rivers, bay, much more. Complete step-by-step instructions and diagrams explain how to cut, fold and assemble three-dimensional pieces and backdrop scenes of the glorious New York skyline.
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New York City Tattoos By Eric Gottesman |
Full-length portrait of othe Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building towering over other skyscrapers, the Brooklyn Bridge at night, and 2 other colorful, large-size tattoos.
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Taxi Driver!: Dashing Around New York City By Robyn Brode |
In this series for younger boys and girls, each book features cartoon-style illustrations superimposed on vivid full-color photos that show different people in different cultures using different means of travel. The cartoons complementing each photo depict kids with their parents. Each parent is a vehicle driver of one kind or another—but the vehicle type depends entirely on where the story takes place! For instance, Maria is a little girl whose mother is a taxi driver in bustling New York City. Other kids and their parents live in Alaska, and travel by dog sled . . . or in a tropical rain forest, where touring visitors are taken on a safari ... or in the bush country of Australia's Outback, where the most common way for people to go places is to fly around in light aircraft. The photos on every page capture the contrasting scenic backgrounds and highly individual atmospheres of each book's place. Meanwhile, boys and girls will identify with the cartoon illustrations of kids and parents, as they learn a little bit about how people live and travel in different places. Early-grade teachers will value these wonderfully illustrated books as fine introductions to social studies.
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Books for Older Readers |
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New York City By Deborah Kent |
Great cities represent the crossroads of a country's politics, culture, and social community. Cities of the World gives students the opportunity to explore the world's urban centers without ever leaving the classroom. Readers will also investigate cities' attempts to solve the universal urban problems of unemployment, pollution, and crime. Each book presents a broad but detailed picture of societies and their people. Each book includes maps, a list of famous landmarks, a "Fast Facts" section, a glossary, and an index.
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Destination New York By Linda Tagliaferro |
One in the series, "Port Cities of North America," this book introduces the reader to the changes in shipping that have occurred during New York's 350 year-history. From the days of the Dutch West India Company to the rise of containerized cargo, the port has played a vital role in the commerce of the eastern U.S. and parts of Canada. Following the thorough treatment of this subject, the book provides a glimpse into the cosmopolitan life of the Big Apple. A glossary, pronunciation guide and index are provided. Photographs and maps are plentiful.
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Weegee's New York Postcard Book By Paul Hutchens |
Weegee held a mirror up to New York and revealed a city that was provocative and gripping, while at the same time managing to capture the City's heart.
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New York City: Downtown America By Barbara Johnston Adams |
Children can take a grand tour of New York City without leaving home. The book highlights places of special interest through full-color photographs, a list of places to visit, a historical time line, and a map.
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