I first read this book to my daughter when she was 4-years-old. The New York tenement setting was such a foreign world in contrast to her suburban Dallas upbringing that she was immediately enthralled with the fact that so many families of diverse ethnic backgrounds would all live in one building. Keats paints such a vivid word picture that a child as young as she could easily be drawn into the story line. The characters and events became real to her, to the extent that she could literally hear the harmonica playing. My daughter begged to revisit this story and consequently every trip to the library for the next year included Apartment 3. To this day, at age 29 and expecting her first child, she still recalls this book and wants a copy of her own.