Bridges

Robbins has become a master of well-crafted nonfiction books featuring hand-tinted photographs. His unusual process creates interest by lending a painterly element to what might otherwise be routine photographs. Here Robbins covers a broad spectrum of architectural styles. He begins simply, with a boy walking a log across a creek and works up to the majestic Queensboro and Brooklyn bridges in New York. In between are, among others, a Connecticut covered bridge, a parkway overpass and an over-the-street bridge linking two Manhattan office buildings. In easily understandable terms, the text discusses all the important structural elements without talking down to the reader. But it is not just the function of bridges that Robbins is addressing; he states, too, that they are ``monuments to craft and imagination, to technology and beauty, and to our need to reach beyond the boundaries of nature.'' Ages 5-up. (May)