City By Numbers
Synopsis
“In this stunning companion volume to the Caldecott Honor Book Alphabet City, Stephen T. Johnson once again challenges us to explore our surroundings in a whole new way. Come along on his tour of New York City, and you’ll discover numbers in the unlikeliest places.
Look closely, and you can see a 4 in the outline of the Manhattan Bridge, a 3 in the curves of a wrought-iron gate, and a 20 formed by windows and shadows on the old Victory Theater on 42nd Street and Times Square.
Uptown or downtown, all around the town, Stephen T. Johnson’s paintings of urban landscapes render the ordinary extraordinary, inviting us to reexamine and rediscover the city around us, and to find beauty in the most unexpected places.”
Viking Books
A Division of Penguin Putnam, New York, NY
ISBN 0-670-87251-2, Copyright 1998
Trim Size: 8 3/4 x 10 3/4 inches, Hardcover, 32 pages
Puffin Books
A Division of Penguin Putnam, New York, NY
ISBN 0-14-056636-8, Copyright 1998
Trim Size: 8 3/4 x 10 3/4 inches, Paperback, 32 pages
Circonflexe Books
12, Rue de la Montagne Sainte-Genevieve, Paris, 75005, France
ISBN 2-87833-222-9, Copyright 1998
Trim Size: 8 3/4 x 10 3/4 inches, Hardback, 32 pages
Awards and Honors
Parenting Magazine’s Reading Magic Award
Parents Magazine’s Best Books of 1998
Reviews
“This companion to Johnson’s Caldecott Honor book Alphabet City once again inspires readers to closely examine an urban setting to find its hidden treasures. All ages.”
Publishers Weekly
“In this wordless companion to Alphabet City (1995), Johnson joins the likes of Tana Hoban, Arlene Alda, and Donald Crews in his attraction to the numbers, letters, shapes, and compositions found in the architecture and infrastructures of outdoor places and public spaces. Paintings show numerals 1-21 that are camouflaged by the urban cityscapes in which they exist. Discovering each number is an exercise in visual literacy: 4 is found in the lines of the Manhattan Bridge at sunset, 8 is formed by the round rims of adjoining trash bins, a 15 hides in the cracked mortar between bricks. Some numbers occur in the lines, curves, and curlicues of existing architecture, such as an iron gate, a fire escape, a cornice; others are created by negative space, for example, between stones on a snowy walkway or in the scraped surface and papery patches of a building’s peeling paint. The subjects are similar to those found in the first book, although the colors, this time, are wintry and more somber. Children will relish the game of locating numbers, while adults will pause over Johnson’s deliberate use of shape and color to influence mood.”
- Kirkus Reviews