Review by New York Times Review
"WOW ... NEW YORK! Just like I pictured it. Skyscrapers and everything." So murmurs a presumably wide-eyed newcomer during a spoken-word break in Stevie Wonder's "Living for the City," and who among us outlanders and former rubes did not feel that same sense of mingled recognition and awe when we first set foot here? Thanks to movies and TV, magazines, the news, books - iconography in general - all of us, even natives, carry a mental suitcase stuffed with received images of the Big Apple. That's true of children, too, for whom the city's superlatives (biggest, loudest, tallest) hold a special fascination. You might even say that New York is to other American cities what dinosaurs are to other animals - minus, one hopes, the extinction event. And if we are - or were - lucky children, picture books play a huge role in how we picture the dty, from "Eloise" and "The Snowy Day" to "Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile," "In the Night Kitchen," "You Can't Take a Balloon Into the Metropolitan Museum" and "The Man Who Walked Between the Towers." Marc Brown's "In New York" might not be in quite that league, but it's a wonderful book, maybe the best of its kind since Miroslav Sasek's "This Is New York," from 1960. Both books are travelogues, rooted in observation but buoyed by whimsy, presenting a city you want to get lost in, at least on the page. I'm a big fan of Brown's "Arthur" books (and even more so his stories about Arthur's stubborn sister, D.W.). In the past, Brown struck me as an artist with a gift more for character than for filling a whole page with something interesting. I was wrong. His illustrations here, with their heightened sense of place and three-dimensional space and their vivid, Seurat-like palette, beckon the eye to linger and roam, to pick out funny details or favorite landmarks. A New York immigrant (from Erie, Pa.), Brown writes as an enthusiast, in a friendly, first-person voice, studding his text with the kind of facts children will latch on to and - some children - repeat ad nauseam. Did you know the Empire State Building is "so tall that it is struck by lightning about 100 times a year"? Did you know that every year New York goes through "approximately 100 million Chinese food cartons"? Did you know New York has "over 1,600 places that serve pizza"? You do now, and may be reminded in the future. "Tap Tap Boom Boom" offers a smaller, anecdotal slice of New York life: A summer thunderstorm hits, a subway station fills with people fleeing the downpour, pizza and umbrellas are shared, a sense of ad hoc community takes hold until the storm breaks and everyone disperses back to the sidewalks. That's pretty much it - quotidian but magical, the kind of interruption in routine that might loom large in a small child's eyes and is rendered evocatively here. G. Brian Karas's illustrations, which combine drawings and photographs, capture the crazy yellow light of a summer storm while the onomatopoetic title, used as a refrain in the text, renders the sound of big, juicy raindrops splattering on concrete as thunder cracks overhead. Elizabeth Bluemle's rhymes don't always scan, exactly; they're more free jazz than swing, but I think anyone reading aloud will quickly get the hang of the text and learn how to have fun with it. If you thought one sweet book about the subway was unlikely, if not a logical impossibility, what about two? The M.T.A. will be proud to learn that "Count on the Subway" (to be published in May) wasn't laughed out of publishers' offices, the way it might have been a couple of grimier decades ago. As the title implies, this is a counting book, 1 to 10 and back again, making use of numerical train names and other features of an underground world that in real life could still use a bit of sanitizing. (The book's mother-and-daughter heroines do not encounter "5 fat rats" or "8 stains of mysterious origin.") Dan Yaccarino's illustrations are stylized in a zippy midcentury way, nodding, I think, to the old U.P.A. animation studio (Gerald McBoing-Boing, Mr. Magoo). They look simple, but pay attention or you might miss the man carrying a fish bowl off the 7 train, or the poster on a station wall that appears to be advertising giant squid. Finally, we have another onomatopoetic read-aloud treasure in "Zoom! Zoom! Sounds of Things That Go in the City," which takes us through a day's worth of urban cacophony. Tad Carpenter's angular, primary-colored illustrations are a perfect visual counterpart to the rattles, bangs and whooshes in Robert Burleigh's text; any child obsessed with trucks or backhoes or trains or steam shovels should get a jolt of pleasure from the vehicular energy on display here. "Zoom! Zoom!" seems as if it must be set in New York - until, contrary to the famous Frank Sinatra song, the city goes to sleep. New Yorkers, openhearted and not at all myopic when it comes to pride of place, will forgive Burleigh that snub, while comforting themselves with the knowledge that no one ever says: "Wow ... Phoenix! Just like I pictured it." BRUCE HANDY is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [March 16, 2014]
Review by Booklist Review
A rainstorm begins with a tap tap and a boom boom, sprinkling cold drops on people in a busy neighborhood block. Cars splash puddles onto pedestrians, and the wind blows both the birds and raindrops helter-skelter. Children will enjoy following the various characters as they put up umbrellas, splash through puddles, and run for cover down the subway stairs: You'd better / go down / underground, / where the water / can't getcha. / You betcha. On the subway platform, a dripping dog shakes himself off onto a little boy; strangers make friends as they share a pizza and listen to a drummer play a duet with a bagpiper; dogs socialize with grinning children; and conversations begin. Then surprise! a rainbow appears as they all emerge from the subway into the clear light of the bright afternoon. Karas' colorful, detailed, and lively pictures created using photographs, gouache, and pencil are the perfect vehicle for Bluemle's succinct, catchy rhymes that energetically describe a sudden rainstorm in the city.--Gepson, Lolly Copyright 2014 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In toe-tapping, jazz-chant verse, author, bookseller, and PW blogger Bluemle (How Do You Wokka-Wokka?) writes about the way a sudden thunderstorm "makes friends/ of strangers." At the story's start, two boys in a playground gaze through iron railings at a girl in a yellow dress hurrying to keep up with her father. On an ordinary day she'd disappear into the crowd, but when the rain starts pelting down, the boys, the girl and her father, and half a dozen others dash for the subway station: "Feet wetter?/ You'd better/ go down/ underground,/ where the water/can't getcha./ You betcha." Over photographic images of subway fixtures, Karas (The Apple Orchard Riddle) draws people chatting, sharing pizza, and shrinking away as their dogs shake themselves off, balancing the force of the storm with the warmth of city-dwellers sharing an unexpected break in their day. Bluemle's story unfolds on a scale just right for preschoolers, with plenty of hullaballoo, subtle attention to the senses, and an affirmation of the way misfortune can lead to small miracles. Ages 3-7. Author's agent: Erin Murphy, Erin Murphy Literary Agency. Illustrator's agent: Brenda Bowen, Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-An enormous raindrop opposite the title page introduces readers to the reflected setting-an urban playground, seen from above. The perspective shifts to a child's-eye view on the opening spread as two friends gaze through the wrought iron gates at the ominous clouds. Karas's winsome, multicultural caricatures inhabit a neighborhood that appears lifelike due to his use of photographs for buildings and subway details. As children and adults dash between the showers and thunderbolts to the safety of the underground station, Bluemle's taut, clever verse propels the plot: "Feet wetter?/You'd better/go down/underground,/where the water/can't getcha./You betcha." Down below, dogs shake out their fur on everyone, a bagpiper and drummer serenade the crowd, pizza is divided, and umbrellas are shared-the storm forms a community. Although the weather is a threatening presence, the underlying cozy mood is set by the warm, creamy backgrounds that stage the gouache, pencil, and collage scenes. When the group emerges back up into the daylight, a dazzling surprise awaits them. The titular refrain-printed in a bigger, bolder font-offers multiple possibilities for audience participation as the story progresses. This upbeat rendition of a common experience will have universal appeal. Don't wait for a rainy day to share the fun.-Wendy Lukehart, District of Columbia Public Library (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Many picture books about storms are set in the country (e.g., Shetta Crum's Thunder-Boomer!, rev. 7/09), but this one takes place in the big city. Bluemle uses rhymes and rhythms to convey the sudden changes in the weather: "Sky grumbles. / Rain tumbles. / Big weather -- / you'd better / get under / umbrella! / 'Cause thunder / is coming: / BOOM BOOM." Collage illustrations catch the city people from a variety of perspectives, looking up at the sky, clinging to umbrellas, and then hustling down to the subway for shelter, pummeled by fat raindrops. People of all ethnicities, ages, and sizes (along with their dogs) wait out the storm, while musicians play and pizza and umbrellas are shared. The emphasis here is not on a child's fear of storms but on the excitement of the experience, all finished with "a surprise in the sky" of a rainbow. Karas's pictures combine painting, drawing, and photographs to show the grit, energy, and beauty of the urban scene and its amusingly quirky people. This would make a great pair with John Rocco's Blackout, with both books celebrating the urban experience of community. susan dove lempke (c) Copyright 2014. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A sudden thunderstorm inspires an impromptu gathering of congenial strangers. It all begins with darkening skies and a few drops of rain. Out come the umbrellas as the thunder roars, the wind swirls, and the rain comes pouring down. People make a run for it to the shelter of the subway. There are lots of smiles and laughter and sharinga brief communal momentand then it's over, and everyone disperses to see a rainbow: "[s]urprise in sky." Bluemle employs bouncy, fast-paced rhymes and rhythms with words that emphasize sound and movement. The title phrase repeats throughout, augmented by "slam bang" and with an additional "crackle" to indicate lightning as the storm intensifies. The text, appropriately varied in size and boldness to match the storm's activity, moves across mostly double-paged spreads and intermingles with the illustrations. Karas, perhaps influenced by Mo Willems' Knuffle Bunny, sets gouache and pencil drawings within collages of photographs of New York City. Backgrounds appear subtly rain-washed or as faded sepia photos of buildings. Blacks, grays and earth tones are highlighted with taxi-yellow and occasional pops of orange, red and green. The ethnically diverse characters are animated as they head for the subway stairs, and there are delightful details to elicit giggles from young readers. Cuddle up for a rainy-day adventure. (Picture book. 3-7)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
