City Shapes

March 21, 2016
Newcomer Murray’s upbeat verses about finding shapes in the city get an extra shot of energy from Caldecott Honoree Collier’s (Trombone Shorty) artwork. On the jacket, he paints a girl with brown skin and hair bound up in a ribbon, who looks at readers through a kaleidoscope. “The city is bursting with shapes of each kind./ And if you look closely, who knows what you’ll find!” writes Murray as the book begins. Collier’s watercolor-and-collage spreads are filled with incident: pedestrians stride by, flags wave, bubbles float, and taxis speed through intersections, with squares, rectangles, and other shapes sometimes highlighted in filmy white. (A minor quibble: the shapes aren’t always clearly matched to text, as when a scarf in the section about rectangles is folded like a triangle, or a rectangular subway-car window is pictured with verse about squares.) Collier doesn’t just create the girl who does the shape finding; he gives readers a chance to get to know her. As she peers out a window with her kaleidoscope, she almost seems close enough to touch. Ages 3–6. Author’s agent: Brianne Johnson, Writers House. Illustrator’s agent: Marcia Wernick, Wernick & Pratt Agency.

Starred review from April 15, 2016
Rhyming text and brilliant multimedia collage combine to follow a girl's journey through her beloved city.Part concept book, part love letter to urban beauty, Murray and Collier's collaboration highlights an African-American girl's observations about the many shapes she sees in and around her city. In his illustrator's note, Collier tells readers that he modeled the little girl on his own daughter, and Murray's author's note shares that she was inspired to write her rhyming verse by her many walks around New York City. The text's pattern first highlights many different items that share a given shape and then names that shape before moving on to another list. A postal truck, a pretzel cart, "and stacks of brown packages hauled up the stairs" are all squares, for instance. Collier fills every page, allowing art to take up entire double-page spreads, and his distinctive collage technique is particularly well-suited to highlighting the shapes named by the text. He also pushes well beyond merely visually reiterating the items the text lists, and the result is a seamless interdependence of art and text that will allow readers to find the named items while also providing ample visual interest to reward poring over the illustrations.A visual feast of cityscape shapes. (Picture book. 3-6)

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Starred review from April 1, 2016

PreS-Gr 2-Readers are encouraged to view the city as a kaleidoscope of shape and color in this rhyming tour provided by a young girl on the sidewalk and a pigeon soaring above. Elements of urban life, including a mail truck, a pretzel cart, skyscrapers, park benches, street vendors, taxis, the subway, and a street performer, also reveal seven basic shapes. "And nearby, the kites seem to dance in the sky./Some SHAPES in the city are.../DIAMONDS that fly." Youngsters will eagerly identify squares, rectangles, triangles, circles, ovals, diamonds, and stars in the busy spreads as well as complete each rhyme to reveal the targeted shape. As night and stars appear in the sky, "the pigeon flies back through the night cityscape/as city lights sparkle, SHAPE after SHAPE./But her heart starts to ache for the SHAPE/she loves best./The SHAPE that is home-/her warm CIRCLE nest...." Collier's rich watercolor and collage spreads feature a child (his four-year-old daughter) as tour guide, smiling and waving us along. The endpapers offer a 3-D geometric world of colorful buildings. Children will enjoy studying the illustrations to identify the various shapes as well as the scattered collage photos of greenery, people, buildings, and cars. VERDICT A colorful look at city life as well as a fun way to teach shapes to young children.-Barbara Auerbach, New York City Public Schools

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2016
Part concept book, part celebration of urban life, this engaging volume encourages children to slow down and identify the various shapes of a city over the course of a day, beginning at sunrise and ending with a calm and glowing evening sky. A young African American girl (Collier's daughter, as we learn in the artist's note) is the guide, and her obvious joy in her city is contagious. Murray's rhyming couplets scan well, making the rhythm easy to follow (and/or memorize, which is always welcome for the youngest listeners or readers). In Collier's vibrant watercolor and collage illustrations, squares are truck windows and a UPS deliverer's packages; rectangles are park benches and skyscrapers; circles are manhole covers and a taxi's wheels; etc. Though the shapes should be familiar to most kids, city-dwellers or not, the choices of the images are decidedly urban, celebrating the diverse cultures in this girl's city as she ventures to the park, the public market, the subway, busy intersections, brownstone neighborhoods, and a quiet rooftop where she spies the nest of a pigeon that makes cameo appearances throughout the story. Fans of Collier's work will notice echoes from his book Uptown, which would make a fine companion volume. Teachers looking for a new book to add to their math unit on shapes need look no further. robin smith

(Copyright 2016 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)