STORIED CITY

More than 200 books for children and teens make their appearance in Marcus’s affectionate and limpidly clear walking tour of the literary sidewalks of New York. Excellent, wide-ranging, brilliantly and carefully done, Marcus leaves no scholarly stone unturned. Beginning in lower Manhattan and proceeding to its tip, and exploring the outer boroughs of Staten Island, Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, Marcus explains exactly how to get there (subway and bus stops, directions, number of blocks to walk) and what you will see once you do. In Lower Manhattan, the African Burial Ground recalls Breaking Ground, Breaking Silence, Chinatown and Little Italy bring to mind Peppe the Lamplighter and My Chinatown. He’s absolutely up-to-the-minute, whether questioning Clement Clarke Moore’s authorship of The Night Before Christmas or including Maira Kalman’s Fireboat in his discussion of the World Trade Center disaster. New York’s mosaic of ethnicities and cultures in books for young people are well represented, from Irish and African to Algonquin and Lenape. For wandering about the city, or for answering children’s questions as to whether a place or a moment in New York City literature really exists, this is extremely cool. (bibliography, index, maps) (Reference. All ages)