Subway Ride [Paperback]

Take a trip around the world on a subway train. A fantastical journey introduces young readers to subway travel through ten different cities around the globe. Five children pay the fare, enter the gates, and zip down the tunnels of the subway stations. Playful, rhyming text paired with vivid digital collage makes for a fun and unique way for readers to explore travel.  This trip around the world shows readers how travel and cultural connections create community.

Back matter includes information about the ten stations mentioned: Atlanta, Cairo, Chicago, London, Mexico City, Moscow, New York City, Stockholm, Tokyo, and Washington, D.C.Take a ride on subway trains all around the world. Beginning in Cairo, a multicultural group of children rides the trains in ten cities, zigzagging from stop to stop around the globe. The brief text is in serviceable near-verse ( Rumbling, roaring-/ blurring speed. / Silver bullet. /Rushing breeze ), but barely registers against Rama's vibrant digital collages of watercolor art. Vivid colors and blurred lines evoke a bustling cheer. Cleverly composed to suggest both depth and action, the pictures tell most of the story: Atlanta's dark tunnels, Chicago's El (a slight deviation from the underground theme), jazz combos in the Stockholm stations and so on, an iconic ticket indicating from place to place where readers and riders are. The book ends with crisp thumbnail portraits of the subways in the cities, which also include London, Mexico City, Moscow, New York, Tokyo and Washington, D.C. The offbeat idea is deftly handled and should trigger further study.
—Kirkus Reviews

Miller's spare rhyming text conveys impressions of subway travel: Clomping, stomping, / shuffling feet / step to the clacking / subway best. Rama's merrily busy digital collages of watercolor art capture the sensations of riding on mass-transit trains. Endnotes give brief information about subway systems in different cil³!