Imagine a City

August 8, 2016
In a picture book originally published in Australia in 2014, Hurst invites readers into an ornate black-and-white cityscape. The meandering journey begins with the words “Imagine a train to take you away,” and a scene of two children and their mother boarding an old-fashioned locomotive. The three enjoy an elaborate tea service en route, undistracted by the white rabbit reading a newspaper and the penguin in the overhead bin. They disembark in an urban space of soaring skyscrapers, cozy apartment buildings, and picturesque architectural follies amid expansive gardens. Humans and animals mingle on the streets, pteranodons wheel overhead, and footbridges connect tall buildings. In this “world without edges,” graceful branches extend from museum paintings, umbrellas become sails in playful gusts of wind, and massive flying carp provide public transportation (“buses are fish/ and the fish fly the sky”). Hurst’s sweeping pen-and-ink illustrations suggest a combination of midtown Manhattan and Hogwarts. If the overall effect is something of a setting without a story, Hurst’s engrossing mashups of the urban and the fantastical present no shortage of fuel for readers’ own imaginations. Ages 3–7.

Who could resist hanging out with gargoyles while sipping tea?"Imagine a train to take you away," instructs an unnamed yet kind-voiced narrator. That's easy enough for a woman and her two children, who board a train all excited and wreathed in smiles. Soon, the dark-haired, pale-skinned trio disembark and enter a city full of towering buildings, bustling with both people and animals--some dressed in clothes, others not--who roam the streets. Hurst includes a few more peculiar figures in this establishing spread: a bear-shaped building, an ominous giraffe walking in the distance, whale-shaped silhouettes in the sky. Before long, the three adventurers are off into the city, riding both the wind and a large fish that serves as a bus service. Other excursions--like sun-bathing on lily pads--seem even more out of the ordinary with a pterodactyl nearby. It's all in the details. Black-and-white ink drawings with an antique, Tenniel-esque feel give the city a muted energy, begging readers to use their colorful imaginations to fill in the rest. The sparse text evokes without overbearing, chugging along at a leisurely pace. Yet some sights stir curiosity better than others, and though the trio returns from the city content, some readers might wonder if that's all there is. Like a nice jaunt through the park--lovely and sometimes inspiring, if a bit unexciting at times. (Picture book. 3-7) COPYRIGHT(1) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.