BEBOP-A-DO-WALK!

A joy-filled celebration of an exciting and even nurturing urban landscape. The narrator, Emi, launches on the endpapers her story of the ``longest walk,'' a trip she made with her father and her best friend, an African-American girl named Martha. From their friendly, familiar Chinatown block in New York City they travel up to Washington Square Park, past the Flatiron building, up to the Empire State Building``Martha swore you could see King Kong.'' They pass 52nd Street where ``Bird and Diz and Monk'' once played. They visit the Museum of Modern Art. Finally they reach Central Park and ride the carousel. Emi's father sketches the boat pond and makes paper boats for all the children; he folds paper cranes during the bus ride home as the lights come on in the buildings around them. The paintings form an appealing view of the big city: colorful, pulsing, filled with child-pleasing details and shifting points of view. This is no golden, lost childhood (although the bus ride seems to cost them 5õ each). As was true in the early works of Ezra Jack Keats, the child-heroes welcome every adventure before them; Hamanaka makes the journey uplifting and the road home safe. (Picture book. 5-8)