Book Review: City Lullaby

                                                                                   BOOK INFORMATION:                                                                  

Title: City Lullaby
Author: Marilyn Singer, Carll Cneut (Illustrator)
Publisher: Library
Source: Clarion Books
Publisher Date: October 15th 2007
Pages: 32 pages
Rating: 3 out of 4 Stars

Ice cream truck jing-a-linging Nine phones ringing, ten horns beeping In the stroller Baby's sleeping.

Will anything wake up that snoozing baby? Follow the red stroller through the cacophony of the city and find out! Rhythm, rhyme, and lots of noisy onomatopoeia from premier children's poet Marilyn Singer, coupled with chaotic, colorful art from an acclaimed European illustrator, make this a rowdy read-aloud, with plenty of things to find and count on every spread.

                                                                        MY THOUGHTS ON THE BOOK                                                              

City Lullaby by Marilyn Singer and Illustrated by Carll Cneut is a great counting book for little ones. It is set in a busy and noisy city scene. The book centers around a mother pushing her sleeping baby through the bustle and hustle of this little city. The concept is that the traffic and the city is supposed to wake up the baby. 

The busy noise is made up of ringing cell phones, dogs parking, traffic jams, trash cans being thrown around, car alarms, a basketball game, loud motorcycles, and some buses. Crazily enough none of this can wake the sleeping baby. Who is shown in various places across the pages. My nanny kid didn't love this book but thought it was fun trying to find the baby in all the chaos. She also enjoyed trying to mimic the sounds that were being made. It was also a great way to explain or introduce city life to her. 

The colors in this book are very bold, and at times I think the book was overwhelming for a little one. The bright packed pages left little to the imagination and created quite a chaotic vibe. While a cute book it wasn't the most memorable children's picture book I have read. It was slightly disappointing. Also don't let the "lullaby" part of the title fool you, this wasn't a bedtime read. It was far too upbeat and colorful.