SUBWAY STORY

Jessie weighs 75,122 pounds and is a beautiful, brand-new subway car.

She was brought to New York in the early 1960s for the World’s Fair, and she loves traveling all over the city. She speeds around curves and ducks under rivers. When musicians practice on board, she accompanies them with deep rumbles and toe-tapping clacks. Over the years, there are many changes, but Jessie never forgets her most important job—helping people travel safely. Until one season, sleek, shiny new silver trains start taking over the tracks. A downcast Jessie sits in a dusty yard, poignantly wondering about the people she had carried. “Did they notice she was gone?” Thankfully, her adventure doesn’t end there. She is taken to the Atlantic and sunk to become an artificial reef, home to many barnacles, coral and fish. Sarcone-Roach cleverly brings the story full circle: Jessie was once an integral part of a bustling city, and now a whole city lives inside of her. With sprawling landscapes and vast underground tunnels as a backdrop, readers will cheer Jessie’s story of revival. The author's acrylics gently anthropomorphize Jessie, giving her headlight-eyes and a winsome smile.

Immensely readable and surprisingly touching, this large heft of metal totes a lot of charm.