Urban essentials

New normal needn't depress, writes Bernie Goedhart.

Keeping the City Going

Brian Floca Atheneum Books for Young Readers Ages 4 to 8

It's been more than a year since the COVID pandemic changed our lives, locking down cities and confining people to their homes. Our new normal is reflected in a wonderful picture book scheduled for release April 27.

Aimed at four- to eightyear-old children, Brian Floca's book is a surprisingly upbeat volume with detailed scenes. And even though the book is set in New York City, urban residents worldwide will recognize street scenes depicted here. Floca has chosen to focus not on the downside of the pandemic (i.e. illness and death, job loss and fear), but instead on aspects that all of us learned to appreciate: the efforts of essential workers to keep cities going while the rest of us stayed safely home.

In an author's note at the end of the book, Floca explains that in the spring of 2020, “drawing what I saw around me in the city took on an additional meaning and purpose; it became one small way of trying to stay oriented in a place that felt suddenly transformed and unfamiliar, locked down and hushed …” The author-illustrator (who received the 2014 Caldecott Medal for his book Locomotive) was especially drawn to the vehicles still out on the streets. “We all have our coping mechanisms,” he notes, “and drawing vehicles is apparently one of mine.”

Adults reading the text aloud to their youngsters will be rewarded with subtle humour, such as the two-page spread of a shopper laden with grocery bags, flagging down a taxi. Under one arm, a bulk purchase of toilet paper. And a two-page spread about packages being delivered by Fedex, UPS and postal personnel — possibly including “that one thing we ordered that we don't really need … / but we've been stuck here at home, and we're bored, and we bought it ...”

Children are shown at windows and balconies, joining with parents and neighbours to applaud essential workers at 7 p.m. daily during that first pandemic spring. And on the back cover of this book, an evocative illustration of a residential window, with a child's drawing of a rainbow taped to the glass. A simple thank you to those keeping the city going.