Christoph Niemann

Niemann navigates New York's subterranean system in this playful love letter to public transportation. Readers follow two children and their father, pictured as transit map–style stick figures, who spend a rainy day exploring routes. The tone is largely celebratory-- rate hikes and construction don't come up--but Niemann finds pleasure in unexpected places, too. His folksy gouaches are color-coded to match the various subway lines, and his pitchblack backdrops make the colors explode, while alluding to tunnel interiors. An abundance of droll details will delight regular straphangers and stir the imaginations of transportation-obsessed children.

Hardcover; 40 pages, 0.2 x 7.8 x 11.5 inches