NEW YORK STATE OF MIND

Using Billy Joel’s reflective lyrics, a fashion illustrator offers witty, impressionistic scenes depicting a pair of stylish canine tourists posing against the ankles of similarly stylish human passersby in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Radio City Music Hall, the (late, lamented) Plaza Hotel, Lincoln Center and other Manhattan attractions. Sideways spreads show the Empire State Building and the Rockefeller Christmas tree, and the dogs take a subway ride and slide on the Wollman Skating Rink. Gussied up with discreet labels for nonresidents, plus a CD, this does convey the song’s idyllic tone—though tourists of the two-legged kind won’t find its helter-skelter itinerary particularly logical. A gift item, likely to appeal most to nostalgic adults, but better than Joel’s goopy Goodnight, My Angel (2004). (Picture book. 6-8)