Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Jacob Lawrence in the City
For ages 2 to 4
Chronicle Books, 2009 ISBN: 978-0811865821
The city is a busy and noisy place, especially the one that we are going to visit on the pages of this book. Let us begin our visit in the city by looking down at a neighborhood. We can see a restaurant, washing drying on a line on a rooftop, people walking on the sidewalks, and the stained-glass windows of a church. We hear the “Beep, Beep, Beep!” of car horns.
On the next page, we see builders hard at work sawing and measuring wood, and further along we are in the stairwell of an apartment building where grinning children are running down the stairs. Out on the street, a child walks a dog, a woman pushes a baby’s pram, and children jump rope.
Using a rhythmic cadence that is reminiscent of a child’s playing song, Susan Goldman Rubin explores eleven of Jacob Lawrence’s paintings. Her words perfectly compliment the bright and vibrant paintings, adding an interesting component to the action filled scenes on the pages.
This is one in a series of board books that Susan Goldman Rubin has created in which she explores the work of modern painters.
