POP’S BRIDGE

Practically bursting with pride, a lad tracks his “high-iron” father through binoculars as the Golden Gate Bridge goes up in this tribute both to the bridge itself, and to the teamwork that built it. Robert’s best friend Charlie Shu’s dad works on the bridge too, as a painter, but Robert thinks his own father’s contribution is much more important. Then a serious accident claims the lives of several workers, causing Robert to understand that the bridge really “belongs” to everyone involved in its creation. Painting with soft-focus realism, Payne effectively captures the finished bridge’s magnificence, as well as the widespread public excitement that greeted its opening in 1937. The story doesn’t quite hang together, and is laced with mannered symbolism and some questionable cultural history, but like Connie Ann Kirk’s Sky Dancers (2004, illustrated by Christy Hale), it offers a cogent glimpse of the human story that lies behind every great building project. (Picture book. 7-9)