FICTION

The Other Side of Town

illus. by author. 32p. Scholastic/diCapua. 2012. Tr $17.95. ISBN 978-0-545-16204-3. LC 2011935782.
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PreS-Gr 2—Another laugh-out-loud picture book from Agee. A New York City taxi driver is having a bad day when a small, rotund man in a lime green bodysuit adorned with a pink antenna shows up asking to be taken to "'Schmeeker Street, on the other side of town." The strange man then pulls out a remote control that activates a hidden tunnel. Soon, muted beige coloring gives way to a brightly colored pink and green world, where the "Smets" and "Spankees" are popular baseball teams, "spotholes" are a roadside annoyance, and the cause of traffic is usually "mush" hour. A sense of movement permeates the spreads, from a twisting, Escher-esque maze of ramps to the dizzyingly arching "Snooklyn Bridge" that leads the driver back home where an enjoyable twist is waiting. There's plenty to capture children's attention during read-alouds: the exaggerated postures and expressions of Agee's trademark cartoonlike characters; soft-hued, dynamic illustrations that fill the pages; and a fast-moving, dialogue-heavy narrative. The unique design (the book is flipped so that the title appears on the back cover) adds to the quirky fun. The wordplay will elicit giggles (and smiles of recognition from those familiar with Manhattan). Just as Agee's Terrific! (Hyperion, 2005) was an age-appropriate primer on the concept of sarcasm, The Other Side of Town provides a humorous way for children to learn about rhyming.—Mahnaz Dar, School Library Journal
The front and back cover set the stage for this strange trip. Traditional full-bleed cover art with title and author lives on the back, while the front's stark white background contains only a round mustachioed character in an odd pink-and-green getup. The first-person narrator, a New York City cab driver, grudgingly picks up this stranger, who asks to be driven not to Bleecker Street downtown but to Schmeeker Street, on "the other side of town." Thus begins a series of humorous miscommunication between driver and passenger. The passenger wants to take the Finkon Tunnel, not the Lincoln Tunnel, and he believes the Spankees, not the Yankees, are the best team. The art, full of detail and movement, makes the juxtaposition of real NYC institutions and their

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