WASHINGTON, DC, BABY!
From the City Baby series
by Feather Flores ; illustrated by Emily Roberts
How fun it is to spend a day as a tourist!
In this new installment of the City Baby picture-book series, an ethnically ambiguous, light-skinned child and their grown-up spend a spring day together sightseeing in Washington, D.C. They visit the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, eat half-smokes (a local delicacy) at Ben’s Chili Bowl, enjoy a picnic in Rock Creek Park, and more. While this book showcases many of the capital city’s key tourist sites, the order in which they are visited is ill-conceived based on geography and practical considerations. The rhyming text scans fairly well, and the names of the landmarks are capitalized in bold font for emphasis. All of the illustrations are double-page, full-bleed spreads, rendered digitally, and the colors are exceptionally bright. Unfortunately, at times the gutter swallows important details. An effective switch from landscape to portrait layout allows readers to experience how striking the Washington Monument and Reflecting Pool are at sundown. Children will have fun matching all of the images on the endpapers to their counterparts in the illustrations. Background characters are racially diverse and include an elderly deaf-blind man, as indicated by his red-and-white cane.
A warm welcome to the capital city.
(Picture book. 3-6)