My Family Four Floors Up

This friendly, rhyming story follows a child and her father--as well as their cute pets, a puppy and a cat--through the day. From morning ritual to bedtime story (and all the fun in between!), life in the fourth floor walk up and on the city streets and parks below is sweet and filled with tender moments between parent and child.

Booklist

A little girl is ready to start her day in this lovely rhyming story that takes readers on her adventures. After a good breakfast, she and her father say goodbye to their cat and walk four floors down, making the journey to the park with their dog, and passing many different people along the way: “Hello sidewalk, / many feet! / Goodbye, / black cat, / city street.” After crossing paths with ducklings and making sand cakes, the family makes their way back through the rain and up the four floors to a nice bath, a good supper, and a soft bed. The colorful, almost vintage-like illustrations pair perfectly with the bouncy, lilting text to create a warm and happy glimpse into everyday life in a city. Krampien’s cozy artwork, populated by pleasantly cartoonish figures, has lots of background details little ones will have fun exploring. This cheery story celebrating everyday urban delights will likely appeal to kids who relate to the busy neighborhood in Julia Denos and E. B. Goodale’s contemplative Windows (2017).

School Library Journal

A child, her father, cat, and dog wake up to an ordinary day in their fourth floor apartment. The family members head down the four flights onto a city sidewalk, over to the park, and back up the stairs and into their apartment for a familiar routine. The minimal but playful, singsong narrative moves the story along rhythmically, with “Hello” or “Goodbye” beginning the page with each new scene. Repeated words on each page will help little listeners with word identification, e.g. on the playground “swing,/swing,/swinging,” the rain “drip,/drip,/dripping,” and finally, “climb,/climb,/climbing” back up the four flights of stairs. Krampien’s charming, contemporary full-page spreads are rich in detail and context, which add playful depth to the light text. The breadth of diversity among the people that this father-daughter family pass on their way in and out of their building is welcoming and refreshing. VERDICT This feel-good picture book is a lovely read-aloud for a toddler storytime. Recommended for purchase.

Publishers Weekly

Stutson (Blue Corn Soup) and Krampien (A Book of Bridges) follow a father and daughter through the ups and downs of a day in their city home—quite literally, since they live on the fourth floor of an apartment building. It’s an ordinary day, rather than an especially eventful one: the two travel to a park, a rainstorm interrupts the girl’s play, and they return home for bath, books, and bed. Writing in the voice of the daughter, Stutson incorporates lots of “hellos” and “goodbyes” into her smoothly constructed rhymes, as well as words repeated for emphasis: “Hello, green park, bright blue sky,/ swing, swing, swinging way up high!” Krampien captures the action in large, comics-style scenes colored in bright shades of yellow, teal, mint, and pink, creating a warm sense of community—not even the storm puts much of a damper on the girl’s attitude. The book sticks to familiar territory, but the father-daughter focus, ready-to-read verse, and appealingly fresh and contemporary art should win it some fans.