Lionel likes to draw. In fact, his teacher is so impressed with his art that she arranges to take him on a journey into the heart of the city—to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Lionel knows, however, that traveling to the museum means taking the trolley, at a fare of 5 cents each way. How will he ever find a way to come up with that king’s ransom? It’s a seemingly insurmountable challenge for a nine-year-old Polish immigrant living in the tenements of New York City, but one that proves anticlimactic, especially in the wake of the wonders Lionel experiences on a trip that enriches and expands his understanding of himself, of art, and of the world around him. Beth Peck’s beautifully rendered impressionist illustrations accompany a story set in the early 1900s and based on shreds of author Sharon Reiss Baker’s own family history. (Ages 5–8)

Growing up on the Lower East Side, Lionel knows only a tiny tenement apartment and a few crowded streets. He scribbles drawings on every available scrap of paper but doesn’t think much of them—until he takes a momentous streetcar journey to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There, he finds that the world is a wider and more exciting place than he could have imagined. With gentle humor and fondness, Sharon Reiss Baker tells a story based on her own family history. Evocative paintings by Beth Peck help capture both the safe familiarity of home and the glorious liberation of discovering the world beyond it.