My New York [Hardcover]

Kathy Jakobsen Hallquist (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 7 and up

Ages 5-9. From the South Street Seaport to the Museum of Natural History, Jacobsen presents New York City, capturing all its incredible energy. She frames the text in a letter from a young New Yorker writing to a friend. The boy will be visiting soon, and the narrator describes the many sights he'll see, not all of them regular tourist stops. The book really covers a wide age range. Primary-graders will enjoy looking at pictures, and older kids doing reports on the city should get a real feel for it through Jacobsen's art.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A gifted folk artist, Jakobsen (illustrator of Reeve Lindbergh's Johnny Apple seed ) here conducts a thoroughly enjoyable and informative excursion through Manhattan. Her fastidiously detailed oil paintings illustrate a chatty letter written by a girl named Becky to a friend who will soon be moving from the Midwest to New York. Becky's tour of the Big Apple includes visits to the Central Park Zoo, the F.A.O. Schwarz toy store, Chinatown and the South Street Seaport; like any good guide, she throws in suggestive statistics (the Baby Watson cheesecake operation uses more than 38,000 eggs a day). Several foldout pages present larger-scale visual extravaganzas, among them a panorama of the skyline as seen from the top of the Empire State Building, a high-rise under construction and dinosaur skeletons at the American Museum of Natural History. As an added treat, youngsters can search out Becky and her parents, who appear in each picture. This stunning book's piece de resistance is a spectacular double-page spread of New York Harbor on the Fourth of July, with fireworks exploding over the Statue of Liberty and an impressive assemblage of tall ships. A splendid tribute to the city that never sleeps. All ages.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Kindergarten-Grade 3-Jakobsen's combination of descriptive, conversational text and colorful folk-art paintings brings to life a young girl's New York scenes. From the Statue of Liberty off the lower tip of Manhattan to the Museum of Natural History on West 81st Street, readers tour places and events such as the NYC Marathon, the Central Park Zoo and carousel, FAO Schwartz, Chinatown, the home of Baby Watson cheesecake, the circus at Madison Square Garden, the aircraft carrier Intrepid, South Street Seaport, and the Fourth of July fireworks over New York Harbor. Fold-out pages of the Empire State Building and a building under construction are an interesting design addition. A map appears inside both front and rear covers. Most illustrations are double paged, with a few exceptions that do not work as well because of the busy details on facing pages. Notes at the end give additional information about each site or event mentioned. Although Becky's New York is in reality only a small area of Manhattan, the marvelously detailed illustrations and the excellent range of places paints an exciting and informative picture of the best of New York City life and activity. A visual treat for children from all around the country.
Mary Rinato Berman, New York Public Library
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 7 and up
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Little Brown and Co; 1st edition (September 9, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316456535
• ISBN-13: 978-0316456531
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,526,064 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Be aware of Scientology promotion in this book, September 20, 2008

By 

char (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My New York (Hardcover)

I purchased this book in NYC a week ago and just tossed it in the trash; wish I had viewed more carefully before purchasing. Should have known when I saw "Celebrity Centre" noted on the lovely map on the inside cover. My suspicions were confirmed with the depiction of John Travolta & family on the following page, billboards for "Dianetics" in the New Years' Eve/Times Square scene, etc. No thanks.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Big (Candied) Apple!, July 22, 2005

By 

M. Allen Greenbaum (California) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My New York: New Anniversary Edition (Hardcover)

Recently, I visited New York City for the first time. I've seen tall buildings before, I've seen crowded urban areas before, and I've even seen NYC before...though only in the movies. There is nothing quite like it, and there really is a electric feeling of energy, combined with architectural wonders, street vendors, Central Park (along with great baseball fans, and very friendly people).

I mention all this becasue "My New York" is an eye-popping, dazzling work that reaches out to you like your first ice cream sundae. At the bottom of each page, Kathy Jacobsen describes (through her narrator, "Becky") the sometimes majestic scenes that she experienced in her eight year stay in the city. The book focuses on Manhattan, fans of Brooklyn and Queens, etc. might feel slighted. Her elaborate, often densely populated pictures include the public library (the one picture where she errs--see below), the zoo on Fifth Avenue and 64th street (there's a nice map of Manhattan in the beginning), an intimate view of the D'Aluto cheesecake store, the underbelly of the aircraft carrier, "Intrepid," a three-panel foldout of the Empire State Building, with a similarly sized view from the top of the building on the opposite side!

Like a Florence Ziegfield show, the can-you-top-this pictures (and the nicely-pitched descriptions) don't let up. There's the inside of the FAO Schwarz toy store, three or four stories showing on one page! Th Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. bird's-eye view of July 4th fireworks exploding over the tall ships and the Manhattan skyline, Central Park, dinosaurs in the atural History Museum, the MET, the Apollo Theater in Harlem (advertising "Amateur Niht"), a nighttime parade in Chinatown, and, of course, RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL and the ROCKETTES doing a Christmas program! Yet there's more, including the Macy's parade, the New Year's Eve ball dropping in Times Square, and games and facts at the conclusion. The book seems longer than it is because of the exciting, detailed pictures--it's almost too much to read at one time.

I agree that the book has too many sly references to friends and who-knows-what other allusions to things that Ms. Jacobsen enjoys or wants to promote. While this is somewhat of a tradition in kids' books, she really overdoes it here. Yet this is a problem only on the opening spread showing the New York Public Library; elsewhere the references are either more subdued or more publicly known. The Public Library spread is annoying also because she includes some very vague-looking drawings of celebrities, whom you can try to locate if you choose. Still, the excessive nature of this scene is easily overlooked given the talent and energy that Ms. Jacobsen brings to the rest of the book.

"My New York is very attractively priced as of this date, and the varied references (sigh--but no Yankee Stadium) will appeal to kids with different interests. Also, I don't think the pictures are in the "folk art" style; the shadings, contrasts, and slightly loopy drawings of people (think "Nancy" or "Little Orphan Annie") evince more of a very early comic strip sensibility. Ultimately, this is a very satisfying book, a large and luminous look at the grandeur of New York City. I think I'll be going back there soon.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Original edition vs anniversary edition, April 6, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: My New York: New Anniversary Edition (Hardcover)

I have often used the original edition of My New York as a gift for both adults and children who visit our home in New York City.

It's nice to have more of Jakobsen's comforting, folksy art in the anniversary edition, but if you purchase it, my advice is to try to ignore the gazillion little ads and words in the new paintings - especially on taxis and buses, and even on the kids' balloons. It seems as if Jakobsen couldn't resist the temptation to include the name of every friend and relative somewhere in the book, and to promote her own favorite websites and companies, rather than allowing the reader to simply enjoy her depictions of New York City.

It may sound picky, but all those little words and ads make the pictures more cluttered and pulls one's eye away from the more important parts of each scene. And it really wasn't necessary for Jakobsen to paint an ad for another of her books, and an ad for her publisher Little, Brown, on the side of a bus going down Fifth Avenue (see the Plaza Hotel page)! Yes, New York City is, in reality, cluttered with advertising, but folk art and indiscriminate advertising aren't a lovely combination.

The beauty of the first book was that the "My" in "My New York" was every reader who loves New York and enjoys Jakobsen's paintings. The book's title and artwork were a perfect combination. The "My" in the anniversary edition is Kathy Jakobsen herself, and all the friends, relatives, publishers, etc that she managed to squeeze in!