This Is M. Sasek

This book may be more for ex-kids like me, for whom the mysterious M. Sasek created a fascinating world of cities and landmarks in the '50s and '60s in his This Is... picture books. This Is Paris, This Is San Francisco, This Is Hong Kong, This Is Cape Canaveral: all told, he made eighteen locations his own, while capturing what made each of them distinctive. And who was M. Sasek? Born in Kafka's Prague, he stayed in the West as an anti-communist emigre after the war and became a citizen of the world. This beautiful book does wonderful justice to his kids' illustrations and to his equally evocative fine-art paintings, and to his sophisticated, curious life as well. (As it turns out, he looked like a cross between Mr. Rogers and Marcello Mastroianni.) (Ages 5 to 100)