In New York

In 1975, my parents took us to New York City for a day as part of a family trip. As my grown-up mind remembers the trip, images of the blue whale and dinosaurs at the American Museum of Natural History dominate. I do to think we went across to Central Park, and I know we did not go inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art (because I still long to got there after all these year and countless readings of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler).

And so, I have been savoring Marc Brown's latest book, In New York, for all the things I would like to do there. In what feels like a friendly tour-guide voice, he narrates as only a lover of that city could do. It begins this way:

"One night when I was eight years old, my family boarded a train in Erie, Pennsylvania. When we woke up, we were in New York City, the most exciting city I has ever seen and probably ever will see. As a child, I dreamed of one day living there, and now I do, in an old house near the Hudson River."

Occasionally, his passion for the city spills into the narrative about the places he loves, especially about walking on the High Line in the quiet of the morning. A list of museums, transportation options, and other information follows the text. With facts and drawings adorning the end papers, In New York is a charming journey from cover to cover.