Hot City

By Barbara M. Joosse

It's one of those days in the city when the sidewalk is hot as a frying pan, and Mimi and her little brother Joe are sweatin' out rivers. Spyin' on Mama and the blah blah ladies is no fun. Out on the street the buses are huffin' out dragon-hot smoke. Even a princess-pink snow cone melts away too fast to lick.Then Mimi and Joe find their way to a place where it's always cool, a place where you can be a princess on a throne or a dinosaur in a forest, a place where you can let your imagination run free . . . the library.Gregory Christie's red-hot illustrations team up with Barbara Joosse's smooth urban voice in this book that points the way to the coolest place in any city.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0399236406
• ISBN13: 9780399236402
• Release Date: June 2004
• Publisher: Philomel
• Length: 32 Pages
• Weight: 0.27 lbs.
• Dimensions: 11.4" x 0.4" x 8.8"
• Age Range: 4 to 8 years
• Grade Range: Preschool to Grade 3

Customer Reviews

book Hot City by Barbara Joosse

This is a delightful book for all ages. The illustrations are fun and creative and the text is also memorable. My two-year old daughter and my 74-year old mother both enjoy it.

Picturebook Masterpiece!

Hot City is one of those picture books that jumps right off the coffee table and gets under your skin. The funny, jazzy, spontaneous, and easy-to-follow text is perfectly illuminated with the bright, lively, syncopated, and imaginative illustrations. The plot is simple enough: a sister and her younger brother finding things to do on a very hot summer day in the city. The dialog moves us through their activities: spying on the 'blah-blah' ladies (that must be universal - how kids feel about their mothers' company and their endless prattle); eating snow cones ("we lick fast, but not fast enough"); and escaping into a cool library. While plopped "down in a big old chair, smooth and cool, like a throne" sister (now Princess) escapes on the back of a unicorn and thwarts a pirate-robber before her brother - riding in on a T.Rex - calls her back to the reality of the library and they depart for home. It's a story that honors where books can take us and would be a great read-aloud to younger children during a library storytime hour.