Mona Lisa in New York

Nayberg follows da Vinci’s famous Mona Lisa from the Louvre to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Escaping the museum on her last night in New York “to go for a walk,” the confident painting soon becomes lost. Without the museum setting, she looks like any other piece of graffiti, as Tag from Brooklyn, a graffitied “man with a big red mustache” soon informs her. But in the vein of many a romantic comedy, Tag graciously offers to show Mona Lisa around New York City, and the duo gallivant through the boroughs, a wide-ranging trip relayed in simple prose: “They listened to jazz in Harlem. They ate pizza in the Bronx.” Art-minded readers will appreciate the many visual allusions in Nayberg’s abstracted, collage-style illustrations (Pinturicchio’s “Young Boy” serves as a waiter, and Jan van Eyck’s “Man in a Red Turban” appears as a Met art patron). A wryly fantastical, art-centered narrative. Ages 4–8. (Mar.)