Gorgeous book celebrates both art, New York City

 

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.