Emma's Journey, written & illustrated by Claire Frossard, photographs by Etienne Frossard, Enchanted Lion Books, $17.95, ages 4-8, 56 pages. Little Emma may not have the wing strength to fly long distances, but every time she rides Duckyduck's back in New York City's Central Park, she hankers to hoist a sail and see how far a boat would take her. Now Duckyduck, her best friend, is about to migrate for the first time, and as Emma watches Duckyduck flap her wings in anticipation of resting down on warmer waters, the little sparrow begins to feel left out. "What about me?" she harrumphs. To get Emma's mind on other things, her mother sends her to see old Uncle Bob, who chirps about ancestors who crossed the Atlantic from France to Central Park, and before long Emma can think of nothing else than to journey to Paris. With a beret on her head, polka-dot boots on her feet and a supply of seafaring supplies, including a fisherman's sweater and a jar of worm jam, she hugs her parents good-bye and goes in search of her Uncle Bob's rat cousin Old Joe to take her there. But getting to his home under the Brooklyn Bridge is an adventure in itself, and will require Emma to slosh through snowy streets in Manhattan passed Radio City Music Hall, fly this way and that, and be wary of cats in between.
