By Jason Storbakken
With illustrations by Pairoj Pichetmetakul
Review by Susan M.G. Dingle
In Last Stop on the Z Train, Jason Storbakken offers children and their adults answers to some of Life’s pressing questions, like what is that “subway mystery liquid”? What do rats in the subway really talk about? And, most important, is there really an intergalactic portal from the Last Stop on the Z Train?
This is a children’s book designed to be read by adults to children, and it perfectly captures the funky weirdness of the NYC Subway while discovering all kinds of magic, humor and down home truths that children and adults in any ecosystem will find fascinating. As a long time New Yorker, I could relate to every shred of urban weirdness, and I enjoyed how Jason Storbakken’s pitch-perfect imagination could make the familiar unfamiliar, and the outright bizarre seem perfectly logical.
Pairoj Pichetmetakul’s paintings convey the gritty reality of the subway, transformed by the imagination into something realistic and fantastical at once. The words and illustrations are beautifully paired, making this book indeed a portal to the extraordinary, through the ordinary.
