City Shapes by Diana Murray and art by Bryan Collier (Little, Brown and Company, 2016) is filled with rhymes and rhythm.  This is the story of a little girl who is walking through her city for a full day.  This little petite is full of wonder and excitement as she gives us, the reader, a tour of her fabulous city.  I love that this book shows the wonder that a city has to hold, so often in picture books the city is not what is showcased its a more rural setting and I am really enjoying the new trend of showing off urban settings and all that they have to offer.

This book is a fanciful I spy and so much fun to read with little ones, the text is so engaging with the rhyme and then of course you need to search for all the examples of shapes on the page, which makes it so much fun during story time.  Another fun component is that the illustrations look like a collage and inspire little ones to think about the stories that they can tell and what they might look like.  I also love that after reading this story the next day as we were driving around our city, the girls started looking for all the shapes that they could see.

What I think is incredibly special is that this little petite who guides us through her city is Bryan Collier’s four-year old daughter; so sweet.  I love that the illustrations capture what it is to be a child and the wonder and delight that can so often be found in the simple discoveries around your community.  This is a perfect book for petites in the 2-5 year age range.