Books like The Bridge — picked by fans

I think empathy is such a doozy to convey without sounding preachy, and even more difficult for young children to grasp when their cognitive development might not be up to the task.

So, I love how Wenzel invites the reader to look at the same cat from different perspectives, like a mouse, a fox, a bird, and even the cat itself. How we perceive the world and ourselves depends on so many things that each perspective can be vastly different from one another, and each perspective is also valid. 

I love this classic picture book, because it's so meaty.

I find it beautifully balanced with a clear, strong plot and supporting details. Having my own young kids helped me recognize how skillfully Sendak weaves what happens to the boy with what happens within his imagination.

Even more touching is while the mother's punishment puts the story into play, Sendak bookends it with a plaintive act of repair. As a mother myself, I've also said unkind things that I regret in a moment of frustration, and it's incredibly moving to have that recognized in such a simple way.

I adore how this book shows beauty as something irrevocably tied to heartache.

While both Big Wolf and Little Wolf have their own expectations for the little leaf, what happens is – as it often does in life – neither. But, instead of becoming a source of disappointment, Brun-Cosme shows us that what happens is something more and even more poignant, an invitation to show up for one another even in imperfect ways.

Despite the constant presence of mobile devices, I think that life – at its core – is still an experience of watching and waiting.

I love that this book shows how we each wait for different things to happen, and how different things can make us happy. Things happen, some people come and stay, and some go, and nothing lasts forever. And that is also a part of life, a river that remains constantly in flux.

Among Robert Moses’ many divisive projects, the Verazzano-Narrows Bridge hits three Power Broker criteria: superlative (longest suspension bridge in the world); tyrannical (an entire neighborhood evicted from their homes); and indelible (who can imagine New York without its soaring Brooklyn-Staten Island link?). A sidebar to Moses’ expansion from Triborough to all-borough authority is the role of a bridge in birthing a fresh literary genre. A mid-century stylist of creative nonfiction, Talese wanted to celebrate the men who risked life and limb to span the narrows. His brand of detached observation has aged awkwardly (the stance on women, for example, or on Indian ironworkers “incapable of enforcing discipline, only capable of handing dollar bills around”). But it is a canonical work of New Journalism, written one year before the legendary essay, “Frank Sinatra has a cold.”

New York City is all about iconic landmarks! When her husband falls ill from “caisson sickness” during the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, Emily Roebling takes on the task of overseeing the massive project. She studies the latest technology of the time in an era when many thought that women couldn’t possibly understand advanced math, engineering, and physics. With illustrations that show step-by-step how the Brooklyn Bridge was built, this book is for anyone who is fascinated by bridges, infrastructure, and true stories about women who get the job done.

As the eminent American author Willa Cather herself admitted, Alexander’s Bridge “is not the story of a bridge and how it was built, but of a man who built bridges.” And significantly, an American man. Early in the novel we are introduced to an English acquaintance of Bartley Alexander who liked him “because he was an engineer.  He had preconceived ideas about everything, and his idea about Americans was that they should be engineers or mechanics.” This can be read therefore as a judgment on American masculinity—this was Cather’s first novel in 1912 and in light of her later writings, was uncharacteristic in having a male protagonist. Alexander’s professional success as a bridge engineer was not matched by his personal life. He could span rivers but not the gulf between his marriage in Boston and his affair with an Irish actress in London. Because of insufficient resources his greatest bridge,… show more.

I first read this one in high school, and to say it blew me away is an understatement. Five people in sixteenth-century Peru die in a bridge collapse, and a devout Catholic priest sets out to see why—what about God’s plan for the world can be discerned from an examination of why these five, and no others, died that day.

This book's impact on my worldview was enormous: how we take what we experience and use it to make sense of our world. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve reread it, and it still strikes me to the heart every time.

This picture book is one of the only contemporary books for children that shows drinking for pleasure.

After a mouse gets eaten up by a wolf, he meets a duck that lives in “the belly of the beast.” The two become fast friends and live happily in the wolf’s stomach. Together they make soup, dance to records, and enjoy the finer things in life.  When the wolf complains of a stomachache, the duck calls up a cure for him—advising that he eat a hunk of good chess, a flagon of wine, and some beeswax candles.

After the wolf does so, mouse and duck don top hats, tuxedo jackets, bow ties and sit down to feast, raising their glasses of wine to the health of the wolf. Ultimately, duck and mouse save the wolf’s life and in return he grants them their wish to return to their home in his stomach.… show more.

Wolves may be more prevalent in literature and film than they are in reality. For an ecocritical perspective on canid cameos in American narrative, Robisch examines 200 texts to understand the real and imagined wolves and their places across cultures and what that tells us about humans and nature more broadly.