If you were a City

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product (If You Were a City) through Raincoast. Affiliate Links will be used, thank you for your support of my blog, costs you nothing to do so, and is so much appreciated. 🙂

If You Were a City is a book of imagination and fun.  A picture book that takes us, through the imagination of a child.  It begs the child reader to answer the question… what type of city would you be? And honestly… don’t you want to know?  Wouldn’t it be interesting to see where a book might take YOUR child’s imagination?

The Basic Details of If You Were a City

Title: If You Were a City
Author: Kyo Maclear
Illustrator: Francesca Sanna
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Pages: 40
Intended Audience: 3-5 years
Formats Available: Kindle and Hardcover
Received: Jacketed Hardcover
Type: Picture Book
Reviewed for: Raincoast Books

About Kyo Maclear 
Born in England, Kyo Maclear lives in Canada. She is an essayist, novelist, and children’s author. She has been nominated for a few different awards.

About If You Were a City
Just like people, there are so many ways a city can be. And this lively picture book explores all of them. From quiet and dreamy to bright and buzzing, the magnificent diversity of our world is celebrated by connecting the uniqueness of its places with the people who live in them. Wild, gritty, bookish, or sheltering-if you were a city, how would YOU be?

Digging Deeper

Francesca Sanna filled If You Were a City with brightly coloured images!  So much colour fills the pages of this lovely little picture book. 

You’ll get to see so many different ways to express how one might be a city.  Through colour, action, mindset, weather, fashion, and more. 

Occasionally vague references would be given to actual cities around the world (like the leaning tower of Pisa), but generally, just a very imaginative read.  Done up in rhyming couplets. 

“Northern, blue, glacial, cold?
Weathered, warm, playful, old?”

So many different ideas presented.   Would you be a ghost city?  A Fable city?  Maybe even a broken city?   A city for biking, healing, dancing, or eating? 

The text is clear and very easy to read.  Changing colour depending on the background. 

So you pick it up?

So, I love the colours, and I love the idea of children having the freedom to make a city that kinda like them.   Children being able to exercise their imaginations is a fantastic thing.  And if in their creativity they learn to express something about themselves, perhaps all the better! 

What might be important to your child to have in a city or in their lives?  Dancing, parks, star gazing, sports or gardening?   What might your child want if you asked the question “if you were a city?”