Mona Lisa in New York
Written and illustrated by Yevgenia
Nayberg
Prestel Publishing, 2021
Mona Lisa from the famous
painting at the Louvre in Paris one day decides she wants to go to New York
City so people from far away can admire her beauty.
She sails across the ocean and
goes to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New Yorkers line up to see her and
admire her beauty.
On her last day in the city, Mona
Lisa secretly leaves her painting so she can explore the city. She gets lost
and then meets Tag, a character created by a Brooklyn graffiti artist.
Together the two listen to jazz
in Harlem, eat pizza in the Bronx, dance salsa on the High Line, and go swimming at
Brighton Beach.
Tag brings Mona Lisa back to the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, and sadly walks across the Brooklyn Bridge heading back home.
When he gets home, he can’t
believe his eyes. There’s Mona Lisa smiling her mysterious smile.
“My home is Paris,” she says.
“But my heart is in New York City.”
The author-illustrator Yevgenia
Nayberg creates a beautiful book with her collage illustrations. Hidden in the
pages are many images from paintings by Sandro Botticelli, Jan van Eyck,
Filippo Lippi, and many others.
At the back of the book, Nayberg
gives a thank-you to all of the paintings she has referenced in her images.
Children can have fun looking up the paintings and then searching for them in
the pages of this book.
Like Mona Lisa, Nayberg is not a
native New Yorker. She was born and raised in Kiev, Ukraine. In this book, she
shares many of the places she has come to love in New York City.
About the Author/Illustrator
Yevgenia Nayberg is a
children's book author, illustrator, painter, and set and costume designer. She
has written and/or illustrated many children’s picture books including “Anya’s
Secret Society” and “Typewriter,” which she both wrote and illustrated; “Martin
and Anne: The Kindred Spirits of Martin Luther King and Anne Frank,” written by
Nancy Churnin; and “Drop by Drop: A Story of Rabbi Akiva” by Jaqueline Jules,
for which she won a Sydney Taylor Silver Medal. Her illustrations have also appeared
in magazines and on theatre posters, music albums, and book covers; her
paintings, drawings, and illustrations are held in private collections
worldwide. Nayberg was born and raised in Kiev, Ukraine, but now makes her home
in New York City.
