Brooklyn Bridge

Award-winning author-illustrator Lynn Curlee’s “wonderful picture book” (School Library Journal) offers a compelling visual history of the “Eighth Wonder of the World,” the Brooklyn Bridge—now with a new look!

“It so happens that the work which is likely to be our most durable monument, and to convey some knowledge of us to the most remote posterity, is a work of bare utility; not a shrine, not a fortress, but a bridge.”

So wrote one architectural critic of the Brooklyn Bridge, one of the grandest and most eloquent monuments to the American spirit ever produced. Beneath the Brooklyn Bridge’s triumphant arches lie astonishing tales of loss, deception, genius, and daring. Over the fourteen-year course of its construction, there was an underwater fire, fraud, and many deaths, including that of designer and chief engineer, John A. Roebling.

When the bridge was finished, as part of the opening day festivities, the president, and two mayors crossed it. Its magnificent site, breathtaking span, cutting-edge technology, and sheer beauty have made it the subject of poems, paintings, photographs, novels, plays, and movies.

Lynn Curlee was educated as an art historian and worked as a fine artist for many years before he began to make children’s books. Three of his books, Capital, Liberty, and Rushmore, were chosen by the Barbara Bush Literacy Campaign as their Book of the Year in three consecutive years. Mr. Curlee has won numerous awards for his work, including but not limited to a Robert F. Sibert Honor Book (Brooklyn Bridge), Orbis Pictus Award (Rushmore), ALA Notable Books for Children (Liberty), and Bank Street Best Children’s Book of the Year (Parthenon). His other books include Ballpark, Trains, Mythological Creatures, and Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. He lives in Norwich, Connecticut, with his partner and two Great Danes. Find out more on Instagram @LynnCurlee.