Keeping the city going by Brian Floca

  A lot of picture books have come out of the ongoing pandemic. Many focus on emotions, trying to help kids stay safe, both physically and emotionally. Others honor those community helpers who continue to work throughout the pandemic. For adults, "essential workers" can be a complex and sensitive topic. However, Floca has thoughtfully introduced the hidden workers throughout a big city that kept it functioning during its shut down.

The story opens as kids look out of apartment windows, watching the city shut down, the streets empty, and everything fall quiet. But not all the people are in their homes. Many continue working, to keep the city going. Floca's detailed watercolors show a panoramic view of New York's neighborhoods and a panoply of masked workers. People delivering food, from stores to homes, public transportation moving people to staff grocery stores, and taxis taking shoppers home. Garbage disposal, postal workers, and utilities. The page for fire and police shows a masked pair of light-skinned people in a fire truck and a masked pair of darker people in a police car, labeling it "the people whose job is to keep everyone safe."

This transitions to medical workers, shown with basic face masks and surgical scrubs, then back to the children and adults looking out their windows and, together, cheering for the workers who keep the city going. An author's note talks about Floca's inspiration and collection of art during the initial days of the pandemic and how it was put together into a story.

I think the reception of this will really vary on where you are reading it, to whom, and why. Like many books thanking essential workers, this inevitably positions the narrator and, by extension the readers, as people apart. "We" go into our houses, stay inside, stay home, while "they" keep the city going. The neighborhoods shown are all clean, in good repair, with utilities available as workers keep the internet, phones, water, and power working. The homeless have vanished from the streets and a careful 1-3 people are shown in each house. All the workers are shown wearing masks and looking calm and in control. There is no mention of protests or job loss. In my quasi-rural area, there continues to be a high rate of people refusing to mask, including many of those same essential workers, as well as police.

Verdict: There's certainly value in adults projecting calm to frightened kids, Floca's art is, as always, superb, and it's a heartfelt tribute to essential workers. I can't help but wonder though, how the many, many kids and families who have experienced the full effects of the ongoing pandemic will feel - certainly not that this is a book for them.

ISBN: 9781534493773; Published April 2021 by Atheneum; Review copy provided by publisher; Donated to the library