Starred Review for Publishers Weekly

Niemann (The Pet Dragon) navigates New York's subterranean system in this playful love letter to public transportation. Readers follow two children and their father, pictured as transit map%E2%80%93style stick figures, who spend a rainy day exploring routes. ""Riding the A requires some patience/ if you plan to visit all forty-four stations,"" they advise. The trains occasionally acquire some light personification (""The 7 is on his way to meet... / his friends at Times Square, 42nd Street!""); after the F and G lines separate at Bergen Street, ""The G says, 'Don't cry. I will meet you/ again at Roosevelt Avenue!""). The tone is largely celebratory%E2%80%94 rate hikes and construction don't come up%E2%80%94but Niemann finds pleasure in unexpected places, too (""There are plenty of critters on the tracks of the J/ enjoying the subway all night and all day""). His folksy gouaches are color-coded to match the various subway lines, and his pitchblack backdrops make the colors explode, while alluding to tunnel interiors. An abundance of droll details will delight regular straphangers and stir the imaginations of transportation-obsessed children. Ages 2%E2%80%935. (June)

ALA Booklist (Thu Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2010)

Train lovers everywhere will enjoy this picture-book ride conducted by a New York Times blogger. One day, a bored father and his two children take an adventure on public transportation through Manhattan and its neighboring boroughs. Along the way, they wave to rats and the Statue of Liberty, ride next to cowboys and bankers, and plan circuitous routes just to prolong the fun. The text is sometimes choppy and awkward ("Riding the A requires some patience if you plan to visit all forty-four stations"). But the gouache art is distinctively urban and bold. Faceless, silhouetted figures resemble those on the pedestrian crossing lights, and the NYC subway's rainbow of iconic lines and signage is creatively woven into the dark, black underground and on the sunny elevated tracks. Other titles, such as Heather Lynn Miller's Subway Ride (2008), are more universal. Niemann's enthusiastic offering is an experience that, like many others, can only be had in the Big Apple.

Horn Book (Sun Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2010)

A dad and two kids, stylized pictographs all, enjoy a day on the trains of New York City. While the rhyming text is dispensable, the gouache paintings on black backgrounds capture the mystery of the dark tunnels, the excitement of a ride, and the intriguingly complex labyrinth of the subway system, each line correctly color-coded.

Kirkus Reviews

"It's cold and wet. What can be done? / A trip on the subway, just for fun!" A father and his two children run down into the New York subway to ride the rails and explore the trains all day long. Every line is represented as the family hops from track to track. Set on stark, black backgrounds with free-flowing brush strokes, the trains swoop and turn on ribbons of appropriately colored paths. And when many of the lines converge in the middle of the book, aptly at Times Square, they tangle like spaghetti strings. After a full day of fun, the children climb out, ready for subway dreams at night. In a witty visual twist, the humans appear as traffic-signstyle white pictograms, with round heads floating over stick bodies (and occasionally attired to suit the text). Inspired by Niemann's clever New York Times blog, "Abstract City," this artistic tour de force will appeal to New Yorkers and visitors alike. Eagle-eyed enthusiasts will carefully plot every stop, spotting subway humor along the way. That the meter occasionally strains is the only false step on this fresh, striking subway tour. (Picture book. 3-5)

School Library Journal (Tue Jun 01 00:00:00 CDT 2010)

PreS-Gr 1 This colorful, vivacious, child-centered title began with a post on Niemann's blog, Abstract City, in which he describes a day of riding the subway with his two sons just for fun. The artist uses thick gouache paint to render his characters as standard pictograms, akin to those on city signs, with curved edges for hands and feet, and the technique creates a chalky texture that looks like correction fluid. Visual communication lords over the text. Niemann uses many tropes for expression: the youngsters, excited to spend the rainy day on the subway, hi-five. The agony of the adventure coming to an end is punctuated with tears bursting from one son and father dragging the other one, boneless. The spreads of the dedication page, the A train and all its 44 stops, and the wild crisscrossing array of colored lines under Times Square mirroring the famed city lights on the surface, capture the glory of this venerable transportation system. The rhyming text and references to subway lore add chuckles for older readers, but the meter does create an occasional stumble. A sure hit with most youngsters, especially those who are transfixed by trains. Sara Lissa Paulson, American Sign Language and English Lower School PS 347, New York City