Subway Ride
PreSchool-Grade 2—Five enthusiastic children of various ethnicities travel subway systems in different regions of the world. After paying their fares and scrambling through the turnstiles, they step on and off the rail cars and become part of the hustle and bustle of their changing underground locations, which include Cairo, Moscow, London, New York City, Washington DC, and Tokyo. The concise text, written in flowing rhymes, moves quickly. Ramá's colorful digital collage spreads are a perfect match for Miller's word images. The artistic style has an Ezra Jack Keats quality as it brightly chronicles the children's travels. Native language spellings along with English spellings of the destinations are written on the subway tickets found within the artwork. This picture book can be incorporated into preschool/primary units on transportation, used as a springboard to introducing parts of the world, or shared during storytime. For a subway theme, pair it with Anastasia Suen'sSubway(Viking, 2004) and Mary Quattlebaum'sUnderground Train(Doubleday, 1997). With its global perspective, it's a worthy purchase.—Lynn K. Vanca, Akron-Summit County Public Library, Richfield, OHEND