17 April 2009 SUBWAY RIDE by Heather Lynn Miller and Sue Rama, ill., Charlesbridge, July 2009, 32p., ISBN: 978-1-58089-111-0

"We step on quickly.

Move aside.

Doors slide shut.

Our turn to ride."

Growing up on Long Island, my parents weren't keen on taking us into New York City. My early visits to Manhattan were always aboard school buses for field trips to museums and plays. And so it wasn't until my first high school outings -- when we'd be set free after a couple of hours to roam about the City on our own -- that I'd come to experience the subway.

"We bump and sway.

We hold on tight.

We zip thorough tunnels

dark as night."

By then, I'd spent years imagining what it was like to be racing about underground. My early impressions of the bustling New York subway crowds were gleaned in the spring of 1964, when I was the new kid in Commack listening to my third grade teacher reading aloud from the Newbery Honor book, THE CRICKET IN TIMES SQUARE.

"Get off my train!"

-- Vincent Schiavelli, from the movie GHOST, as the spirit on a NYC subway train in the freakiest subway scenes I've ever seen.

When, as a teen, I began attending rock concerts and antiwar protests in Manhattan, we'd ditch the car at Rego Park in Queens and take the subway. There is so much added magic when you suddenly go from speeding along in the dark underground to taking a crowded escalator upward to emerge into the bright lights, wonderful scents, and utter chaos of the greatest city in the world. (Oh, man! Just the thought of it has now got me craving a real salt bagel.)

"Saxophone blasts

jazzy vibes.

Drums and cymbals

jam and jive."

I've spent the second half of my life living outside of the other greatest city in the world -- San Francisco. Here the subway is called BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit). When I want to go play in the City while avoiding bridge tolls and traffic jams, I can cruise over to El Cerrito and ditch my pickup truck in favor of careening under the Bay into the midst of Market Street. And on those occasions when I am heading out of town, I'm able to travel on BART right to one of the airports.

"Clomping, stomping,

shuffling feet

step to the clacking

subway beat."

Thanks to my attendance at American Library Association conventions and Book Expos, I have gotten to experience a great variety of subway systems. I love those cool old cars on the T up in Boston; I've seen the hypnotic advertising in the dark tunnels of Atlanta's MARTA system; I've taken many trips from my favorite hotel in Chicago up north to little jazz clubs; and I've been all over D.C. thanks to The Metro.

"Last stop! we hear

the driver shout.

Doors open wide.

We step out."

My eyes just drink up Sue Rama's bright watercolor collages that illustrate Heather Lynn Miller's lyrical SUBWAY RIDE. Five smiling kids groove to the beat of the subway as they experience the systems in Atlanta, Cairo, Chicago, London, Mexico City, Moscow, New York City, Stockholm, Tokyo, and Washington, D.C. An afterward provides a brief introduction to each of these subway systems. (Those readers who then want to know more about the history of subways can check out SUBWAY: THE STORY OF TUNNELS, TUBES, AND TRACKS by Larry Dane Brimner and Neil Waldman.)

Riding the subway is really exciting and, like other public transit, benefits the environment. This SUBWAY RIDE is a total blast.

Richie Partington, MLIS

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