Out the Door

The collage illustrations vary perspective, sometimes showing the travelers clearly while challenging readers to look for them at other times. Two subway scenes are particular striking, one of the travelers waiting from the opposite platform and the other a cutaway of the train passing below the streets. Kids can use the word patterns of this easy story to discuss their own experiences.

Young readers will delight in the textured, colorful images as an unnamed girl ventures out for the day, going from her front door, through the neighborhood, onto the train, to school, and back home again, each step marked by familiar sights for city dwellers, like subway stations, historic architecture, and skyscraper-filled panoramas. . . . Hale's love for New York and pleasant memories of living there shine through in this playful romp through the city.

It's a perfect back-to-school book, a warm-hearted chronicle of a daily routine, and an appealing introduction to directional and positional prepositions. 

Intricate, textural cut-paper collage distinguishes this directional tale, which follows a brown-skinned child sporting a red jacket through a weekday commute via the New York subway--from a Brooklyn brownstone to school and back. In concise prose that emphasizes directional words, a child and adult head "down the stoop" and "beyond the turnstile" to wait for a train. Hale's art presents cityscapes from fluctuating perspectives, populated with a diverse cast of pedestrians, passengers, and classmates. Just right for completists and transit enthusiasts, the penultimate pages offer a paneled spread of the routine in reverse as the child accompanies a caretaker home. A charming, detailed primer for easing children into new routines and spatial phrases. Ages 3-6. (Oct.)

Copyright 2020 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

K-Gr 2--Using collage to great effect, Hale (Todos Iguales/ All Equal: Un Corrido de /A Ballad of Lemon Grove) takes the readers on a prepositional journey through New York City as a young child who has brown skin and straight brown hair leaves home, journeys on foot and by subway, goes to school, and returns. The blend of illustrations and simple text provides a great teaching tool for prepositions, but this book is so much more. Celebrating family, community, and the joys of city life through the eyes of a child, the book succeeds on multiple levels. There are several breathtaking spreads of detailed and child-friendly collage (beginning with the spectacular cover) that students will pore over and connect to their own lives whether they live in a city or not. In this time of distance learning, this title could be used as a launching point for students to create their own "out the door" journeys in their community. VERDICT Prepositions are delightful. Highly recommended.--John Scott, Friends School of Baltimore

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Youngsters will be riveted by the sights and sounds of Hale's city. Out the Door is a charming read that will prompt readers to reflect on their own daily rituals.— BookPage