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Summary and Reviews of Brooklyn Bridge by Karen Hesse

Brooklyn Bridge by Karen Hesse

Brooklyn Bridge

by Karen Hesse
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (6):
  • Readers' Rating (6):
  • First Published:
  • Sep 2, 2008, 240 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Sep 2008, 240 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

Joseph Michtom always considered himself lucky, but life changed irrevocably when his parents created the first teddy bear. Through the warmth, the sadness, the frustration, and the laughter of one big, colorful family, brooklyn Bridge is a stunning story of the lucky and the unlucky, and reminds us that all our lives are fragile, precious, and connected.

On that day in 1903, fourteen-year-old Joseph Michtom’s life changed irrevocably when his parents - Russian immigrants - created the first teddy bear. No longer did the Michtom’s gather family and friends around the kitchen table to talk. No longer was Joseph at leisure to play stickball with the guys. No longer were Joseph and his book-loving sister free from watching their pesky two-year-old brother. Now - when it was summer vacation and more than anything Joseph wanted to experience the thrill, the grandeur, the electricity of Coney Island - Joseph worked. And complained. And fell in and out of love. And argued. And hoped that everything would go back to how it used to be. All the while no one let him forget that he was lucky.

Because - “There are other children. The unwanted, the forgotten, the lost ones. They gather under the bridge each night to sit, to talk, to sleep. They know, they know, they know that to everyone beyond the bridge they are invisible... .” These are the children who live under the bridge. The Brooklyn Bridge.

Newbery medalist Karen Hesse masterfully entwines Joseph’s coming-of-age tale (and that of his big, colorful family) with the heartbreaking stories of the children under the bridge. Riveting historical fiction that is by turns accessible and ornate, very real but with a touch of magical realism. Hesse’s extraordinary new novel is an insightful reminder that a life - fragile and precious - can change in a moment.

July 1903

Chapter One

THE GUYS SAY I'M LUCKY. That I got everything.

They’re right. I am lucky.

I’m the luckiest kid in the world.

Not everyone’s so lucky. I know this.

Take Dilly Lepkoff. Dilly pushes his cart past our store every day, rain or shine. Dilly, in his long apron, he calls, "Pickles! Pickles!" Just hearing his voice I’m drooling, tasting the garlic and vinegar across my tongue. Those pickles of Dilly’s, they suck the inside of your cheeks together. They make the spit go crazy in your mouth.

So Dilly, he knows what he’s doing with a pickle. But is he lucky? That all depends on what you call luck. He and his family, they been to Coney Island, which I have not. That makes him lucky in my book. But Dilly Lepkoff, he’s still looking for a land of gold.

In the Michtom house we got golden land coming out our ears. Does that make me lucky? Ever since school let out I been asking Papa to go to Coney ...

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Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

The ponderous prose, the horror stories of cruelty and abuse, the death-in-life Neverland of the street children, and the life-in-death of the wraithlike Radiant Boy subvert the novel and diminish its aesthetic success. Although Hesse connects The Radiant Boy to the living world Joseph inhabits through a series of improbable (and puzzling) coincidences, most potent are the sections of the novel in which Hesse devotes her great talents to realizing a real place and a real time in history: New York 1903, its smells, its sounds, its people. Reading about the Superbas baseball team, a deadly outbreak of the grippe, the menagerie at Prospect Park, and of course, the stupendous Luna Park is wonderful. So wonderful that I wonder if the street children's invisibility and diminished lives aren't ghostly enough without the creaky narrative machinery that conveys their stories and heralds the Radiant Boy's arrivals and departures...continued

Full Review Members Only (1008 words)

(Reviewed by Jo Perry).

Media Reviews

Booklist
Rooted in the Jewish immigrant experience in early-twentieth-century New York City, this story weaves together one boy’s immediate personal narrative with a community’s historical struggles….the plot reveals intricate connections, up to the very last chapter, that will make readers return to the beginning of this gripping story and see everything in a new way.

Horn Book
The narrative includes tightly interwoven elements of multiple genres—adventure, romance, comedy, ghost story, and family drama—without ever compromising the authenticity of the plot or the characters.

Kirkus Reviews
Starred Review. In this tale of Dickensian contrasts in kindness and cruelty, Brooklyn comes alive with the details of time and place, but it is the shadow of pain and transcendence cast symbolically by the bridge that haunts and compels. Another work of enduring excellence from Hesse. Ages 10-14.

Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Deftly paced story...the novel explodes with dark drama before its eerie but moving resolution. Ages 10-14.

School Library Journal
Alternating with this story line is a parallel narrative devoted to abandoned children who forge a life for themselves under the shelter of the Brooklyn Bridge. Readers will have a hard time putting down this compelling story.

Reader Reviews

Laura tanton

Brooklyn Bridge at it's best!
Listened to "Brooklyn Bridge" on audiobook CDs with my 12 year-old son. Very well written, and the narrator was FABULOUS. Love that it is based on a historical theme (and would love to know if the entire story is historically accurate). ...   Read More
Quin

Brooklyn Bridge
This was like the most inspiring book I have ever read, and I am the kind of person who reads 20 books a day and non of them inspire me this much. Definitely best book ever!3
Save

Best Book Ever!!!!!
This is by far the most clever yet touching book I've read so far and I've read 914 books. A lot don't you think and I'm only 11. This book is about a 14 year old boy who's parents started making teddy bears and his sister makes her own library in ...   Read More
Bella

A fine example of what historical fiction should be-deep, fun, and thought-provoking
I'm a ten year old girl who recently read this book. It was a deep, yet fun confection about growing up in the early 1900's, the time where New York was spilling with immigrants and Coney Island was at its prime. It prompted me to read online and ask...   Read More

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Beyond the Book



Teddy Bears, Luna Park, and Helping Homeless Children

The Invention of the Teddy Bear

You can learn about the invention of the American Teddy Bear (Richard Steiff invented a soft toy bear in Germany independently in the same year.) and see Clifford Berryman's political cartoon that inspired it by visiting the Teddy Bears and Friends Website.


Luna Park

Spectacular and dreamlike, Luna Park illuminates Brooklyn Bridge. The History of Amusement Parks website contains fantastic pictures of the rides, especially the ride to the moon described in the novel, the promenades, the lights, the animals. A visit to this site is a must after reading this novel.


Donating Stuffed Toys to Homeless Children

No one ...

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Read-Alikes

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