Chicken and Cat by Sara Varon.

This nearly wordless book about a cat who lives in the country and comes to visit his friend Chicken in the city, shows how country folk may react to the city.  At first, Cat only sees the garbage, the concrete, and the empty lots.  Chicken shows him much more like a huge park, but Cat still thinks that there aren’t enough flowers and colors in the city.  The final solution is that the two friends create a garden out of the empty lot across the street from Chicken’s house. 

I really liked this story.  The wordlessness makes it accessible to preschool children all on their own.  As a librarian in a rural community, it is also a really nice book to help introduce children to a city and to share before they travel to a large city for the first time.  This is a great addition to collections in both city and rural libraries.