While the pandemic has kept everyone inside, a few people remain on the streets of New York City. They keep the city going—delivering food on bikes and in trucks, driving buses and subways trains and taxis and garbage trucks. They are postal workers, firefighters, police, nurses, doctors, and EMTs. They are the people who keep the water and gas and electricity and internet going. And every night at 7:00, people emerge from their homes to clap and cheer and remind one another that they’re all in this together. Detailed watercolor illustrations of city life, with a heavy emphasis on vehicles, are a noteworthy aspect of this marvelous tribute to essential workers. (Ages 4-8)

Caldecott Award winner Brian Floca gives a heartfelt thank you to the essential workers who keep their cities going during COVID-19 quarantine in this tenderly illustrated picture book.

We are here at home now, watching the world through our windows. Outside we see the city we know, but not as we’ve seen it before. The once hustling and bustling streets are empty. Well, almost empty. Around the city there are still people, some, out and about. These are the people keeping us safe. Keeping us healthy. Keeping our mail and our food delivered. Keeping our grocery stores stocked. Keeping the whole city going. Brian Floca speaks for us all in this stirring homage to all the essential workers who keep the essentials operating so the rest of us can do our part by sheltering in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.