Sky Boys: How They Built the Empire State Building

The acclaimed team that brought readers the IRA Children's Book Awardwinning Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt is back with a riveting brick-by-brick account of how one of the most amazing accomplishments in American architecture came to be. It's 1930 and times are tough for Pop and his son. But look! On the corner of 34th Street and 5th Avenue, a building straight and simple as a pencil is being built in record time. Hundreds of men are leveling, shoveling, hauling. They're hoisting 60,000 tons of steal, stacking 10 million bricks, eating lunch in the clouds. And when they cut ribbon and the crowds rush in, the boy and his father will be among the first to zoom up to the top of the tallest building in the world and see all of Manhattan spread at their feet.

DEBORAH HOPKINSON is the author of Sky Boys: How They Built the Empire State Building, an ALA Notable Book and a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, and Abe Lincoln Crosses a Creek, illustrated by John Hendrix, an ALA Notable Book and a Junior Library Guild Selection. Her most recent book is A Boy Called Dickens. Her many other acclaimed titles include ALA Notable Apples to Oregon, Under the Quilt of Night, and Fannie in the Kitchen.

JAMES E. RANSOME is the illustrator of many titles, including Before There Was Mozart: The Story of Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-George; Young Pelé: Soccer's First Star, a finalist for the NAACP Image Awards; Satchel Paige; and Major Taylor: Champion Cyclist. He is also the illustrator of Sky Boys: How They Built the Empire State Building by Deborah Hopkinson, a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award and an ALA Notable Book; Creation, which won a Coretta Scott King Award for Illustration; and Let My People Go by Patricia C. McKissack, winner of an NAACP Image Award. Visit him at JamesRansome.com