Keeping the City Going

March 1, 2021
An award-winning New York City author/illustrator thanks all the risk-taking essential workers. In the first days, weeks, and months of the Covid-19 pandemic, life on city streets changed from busy congestion to an eerie quiet. Two children, looking concerned, gaze out from their apartment-house window at a strangely empty scene. Almost the only souls about are delivering food on bikes, hauling flats in supermarkets, or driving buses, trains, and taxis. Sanitation workers, letter carriers, and utility workers continue their work on and under the streets. Firefighters, police officers, and hospital workers are busy. Diverse apartment-house dwellers play their appreciative part, though. Every evening at 7:00 they erupt into a cacophony: noisily cheering, banging pots, and blowing musical instruments. "We are here together." The narration is in the voice of a very observant child who has not lost their sense of humor, voicing some doubts about a nonessential online purchase. A community spirit shines in the use of we. Floca's signature illustrations offer meticulously detailed renditions of city buildings and a wide assortment of urban vehicles. Everyone is properly masked. The evening cheers have stopped, but the gratitude has not. The story was first developed as a YouTube video, and here the sound effects are missing, but they can be easily and enthusiastically added by young readers. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-18-inch double-page spreads viewed at 64.9% of actual size.) Essential reading about essential workers that is informative, reassuring, and positive. (author's note) (Picture book. 4-8)

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April 1, 2021
Grades K-3 *Starred Review* An ode to the city workers keeping New York City going during the COVID-19 pandemic, this picture book begins with a boy and girl peeking out of their apartment window. With lyrical text and exquisite, detailed illustrations, Floca reminds readers of the early days of the pandemic with an empty city street. Well, almost empty. A hint of movement in these opening scenes turns into a full-page spread with food deliverers on bikes. Of course, first responders--the fire department, police officers, ambulance drivers, and health care workers--are depicted prominently, but so too are the workers who suddenly become frontline service and care. The bus drivers, sanitation engineers, grocery-store workers, and those keeping phones and internet functioning so people can stay home for work and school. There's even an apology to the mail and package deliverers as people sometimes bought things they didn't need out of boredom. The text is light on many pages, allowing the dramatic illustrations to tell the story. The latter are made even more immediate as some of the workers look directly at readers, inviting them into the scenes. At the end, Floca returns to the apartment dwellers, who honor the workers each evening by cheering and banging pots. A moving tribute that remembers essential workers and community in a time of loss.

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