Excerpt from Brooklyn Bridge by Karen Hesse, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

No one is immune to Mama. Her thick brown hair, when she lets it loose, curls down her back. Long, soft curls, the color of chocolate. All of us, we do what ever it takes to make Mama happy.

Papa was smart to marry her. That’s just one way Papa’s smart. In sixteen years he rose from the crowd of penniless greenhorns on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, to in de pen - dent shop keep er of Brooklyn, to successful bear manufacturer, to correspondent of presidents. Well, one president. Theodore Roosevelt.

Excerpted from Brooklyn Bridge by Karen Hesse, Copyright © 2008 by Karen Hesse. Excerpted by permission of Feiwel & Friends, a division of Macmillan. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.