City Shapes

by Diana Murray, Bryan Collier (Illustrator)

Overview

From shimmering skyscrapers to fluttering kites to twinkling stars high in the sky, everyday scenes become extraordinary as a young girl walks through her neighborhood noticing exciting new shapes at every turn. Far more than a simple concept book, City Shapes is an explosion of life. Diana Murray's richly crafted yet playful verse encourages readers to discover shapes in the most surprising places, and Bryan Collier's dynamic collages add even more layers to each scene in this ode to city living.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316370929
Publisher:	Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	06/21/2016
Pages:	40
Product dimensions:	8.70(w) x 11.30(h) x 0.60(d)
Lexile:	AD930L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Diana Murray is an award-winning writer of stories and poems for children. She is the author of Grimelda, The Very Messy Witch and several other picture books. Her poems have appeared in many magazines, including Highlights for Children and Spider. She grew up in New York City and still lives nearby with her firefighter husband, two children, a goldfish, and a bearded dragon. One of Diana's favorite shapes is a blank rectangle of paper.

Bryan Collier has illustrated more than twenty-five picture books, including the award-winning Dave the Potter, Knock Knock, and Fifty Cents and a Dream, and has received numerous awards, including three Caldecott Honors and five Coretta Scott King Awards. He lives with his wife and children in Marlboro, New York.

Editorial Reviews

03/21/2016
Newcomer Murray’s upbeat verses about finding shapes in the city get an extra shot of energy from Caldecott Honoree Collier’s (Trombone Shorty) artwork. On the jacket, he paints a girl with brown skin and hair bound up in a ribbon, who looks at readers through a kaleidoscope. “The city is bursting with shapes of each kind./ And if you look closely, who knows what you’ll find!” writes Murray as the book begins. Collier’s watercolor-and-collage spreads are filled with incident: pedestrians stride by, flags wave, bubbles float, and taxis speed through intersections, with squares, rectangles, and other shapes sometimes highlighted in filmy white. (A minor quibble: the shapes aren’t always clearly matched to text, as when a scarf in the section about rectangles is folded like a triangle, or a rectangular subway-car window is pictured with verse about squares.) Collier doesn’t just create the girl who does the shape finding; he gives readers a chance to get to know her. As she peers out a window with her kaleidoscope, she almost seems close enough to touch. Ages 3–6. Author’s agent: Brianne Johnson, Writers House. Illustrator’s agent: Marcia Wernick, Wernick & Pratt Agency. (June)

Publishers Weekly

An interesting analysis of shapes clarifies definitions of geometric forms like “circle,” “oval,” “square” and “rectangle,” while also underscoring the way that they are related to each other, emphasizing the way they complete and complement each other. Examples are borrowed from everyday scenes of city life. Murray walks the reader through recognizing complex images, simplifying shapes, and deconstructing layers built by the reflections of shapes in glass, the shape of objects for sale on a vendor’s table, and those that make up streetlights, flags and in the figures and forms painted in murals on the walls of buildings. Her rhyming text flows well, successfully mimicking the interplay of the forms and rich colors that Collier uses in his illustrations, creating images that are sophisticated and fresh. Figures are fully developed in three dimensions, supporting the blend of flat shapes with shapes that have depth and perspective. The multiple ethnicities that typically populate a city are represented in the individuals and crowds on the sidewalks and in parks, mirroring the different shapes and colors in the illustrations. The synthesis of text and image is seamless; and the result is a book that educates, delights and encourages the reader to observe, look closely, and appreciate the intricacy of the shapes that make up a city landscape. Murray’s book would be a very good addition to a preschool or elementary classroom or library’s resources for introducing children to basic shapes that are the foundation for later learning. Reviewer: Hazel Buys; Ages 4 to 8.

Children's Literature - Hazel Buys

★ 04/01/2016
PreS-Gr 2—Readers are encouraged to view the city as a kaleidoscope of shape and color in this rhyming tour provided by a young girl on the sidewalk and a pigeon soaring above. Elements of urban life, including a mail truck, a pretzel cart, skyscrapers, park benches, street vendors, taxis, the subway, and a street performer, also reveal seven basic shapes. "And nearby, the kites seem to dance in the sky./Some SHAPES in the city are…/DIAMONDS that fly." Youngsters will eagerly identify squares, rectangles, triangles, circles, ovals, diamonds, and stars in the busy spreads as well as complete each rhyme to reveal the targeted shape. As night and stars appear in the sky, "the pigeon flies back through the night cityscape/as city lights sparkle, SHAPE after SHAPE./But her heart starts to ache for the SHAPE/she loves best./The SHAPE that is home—/her warm CIRCLE nest…." Collier's rich watercolor and collage spreads feature a child (his four-year-old daughter) as tour guide, smiling and waving us along. The endpapers offer a 3-D geometric world of colorful buildings. Children will enjoy studying the illustrations to identify the various shapes as well as the scattered collage photos of greenery, people, buildings, and cars. VERDICT A colorful look at city life as well as a fun way to teach shapes to young children.—Barbara Auerbach, New York City Public Schools

School Library Journal

★ 2016-03-30
Rhyming text and brilliant multimedia collage combine to follow a girl's journey through her beloved city.Part concept book, part love letter to urban beauty, Murray and Collier's collaboration highlights an African-American girl's observations about the many shapes she sees in and around her city. In his illustrator's note, Collier tells readers that he modeled the little girl on his own daughter, and Murray's author's note shares that she was inspired to write her rhyming verse by her many walks around New York City. The text's pattern first highlights many different items that share a given shape and then names that shape before moving on to another list. A postal truck, a pretzel cart, "and stacks of brown packages hauled up the stairs" are all squares, for instance. Collier fills every page, allowing art to take up entire double-page spreads, and his distinctive collage technique is particularly well-suited to highlighting the shapes named by the text. He also pushes well beyond merely visually reiterating the items the text lists, and the result is a seamless interdependence of art and text that will allow readers to find the named items while also providing ample visual interest to reward poring over the illustrations.A visual feast of cityscape shapes. (Picture book. 3-6)

Kirkus Reviews