New York, Baby!

April 15, 2012
This frenzied stroller-level dash through the Big Apple is likely to leave even hardened tourists exhausted. "The sun is up in N-Y-C. / Come and see the sights with me!" invites a tyke, done up in a retro cartoon style with eyes and mouth open wide. Jenkins wheels tour guide and viewers through "The Met," catches a bus "downtown" to a deli, pops over to Times Square for a Lion King (unnamed but easily identifiable) matinee and a visit to the Empire State Building, then it's "Taxi, taxi! Go, GO, GO! / Time for dinner in Soho!" Simultaneously published, San Francisco, Baby! trucks another hyped-up toddler from "the Wharf" to "the Haight" past a few recognizable landmarks. Along with forcing rhymes and cadences, the nameless author shoehorns abbreviated references to sights and neighborhoods into the commentary that will mean little to nonresidents, particularly since neither volume includes a map to give the itineraries some coherence. Too slight to serve either as guides for newbies or alternatives to keepsake/tributes like Robert Neubecker's Wow! City! (2004) or M. Sasek's This Is San Francisco (updated edition 2003). (Picture book. 3-5)

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July 1, 2012
Toddler tourists take in the famous sights of two exciting cities. Exclamatory and pedestrian, the rhyming couplets feel forced, and, inexplicably, some words are set in large, boldface type. However, the riches of each city are presented in illustrations cheerful with color and multiculturalism, and parents traveling with preschoolers may find the books useful.

(Copyright 2012 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)