A board book for toddlers and city-loving adults: rhyming couplets and bright illustrations of corner stores, subway stops, bagels and lox, the things that make New York the city it is. Author Elisa Parhad, illustrator Alexander Vidal. Cameron Kids, 2022.

You give it as the first book in the new home library. The pages survive the kid. The art is good enough that the parents like it too.

A new baby gift for the New York couple. A baby shower for the friend who just moved from Brooklyn to the suburbs and wants her kid to know where she came from. A grandparent gift the toddler will actually let you read.

Elisa Parhad and Alexander Vidal also did Los Angeles Is. Both books read like a love letter to a city, sized for small hands.