How Emily Saved the Bridge: The Story of Emily Warren Roebling and the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge

Wishinsky begins her story of Emily Warren Roebling with a modern mother and child crossing the Brooklyn Bridge: “Emily Roebling inspired me to become an engineer.” In 19th-century New York, the text explains, girls were told that they shouldn’t study math or science—a suggestion that Roebling pointedly rejected. Roebling marries an engineer who begins designing a bridge to span the East River; when he becomes ill, she educates herself in engineering and design in order to assume her husband’s role. Wishinsky details the missteps and triumphs of the bridge’s construction, while Nelson illustrates in an eclectic collage art style with paper doll–like characters and playfully skewed perspective. Roebling’s story doesn’t end with the bridge’s completion: “In 1899, she graduated in law from New York University. She was fifty-six years old. Her final essay focused on equal rights for women.” Ages 7–10. [em](May) [/em]