Titled Lost in NYC: A Subway Adventure (Ages 8-12), this gem is a Toon Graphics book, collaborated on by native New Yorker and children’s comics author, Nadja Spiegelman, and prominent European cartoonist, Sergio Garcia Sanchez. Because get this: it is now MY FAVORITE NEW YORK BOOK OF ALL TIME. I’m declaring it required reading for natives and tourists alike. We discovered this past weekend (thank you, Books of Wonder) that there is a new children’s book that marries JP’s love of the subway with the Empire State Building.

When he is not rattling off the list of upcoming stops on an uptown train ride, he is looking around him on the street for the landmark against which to measure all landmarks. This last point is in large part owing to two things: first, JP’s recent discovery of the NYC subway map and secondly, his fondness for the Empire State Building, which we summitted on our previous trip to the city. I take sublime pleasure in watching JP fall deeper in love with the city of my childhood at every visit: soaking up the street sounds (“I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep without the horns and sirens,” he told me in all seriousness on the night we got home) quickening his walking pace to keep up with the most seasoned striders and taking an active roll in navigating us through the city streets, both above and below ground.

My son and I just returned from one of our beloved fall traditions: a long weekend in New York City.

Lost in NYC by Nadja Spiegelman