Who Built That? Bridges: An Introduction to Ten Great Bridges and Their Designers

by Didier Cornille, Yolanda Stern Broad (Translator)

In this latest addition to his popular Who Built That? series, Didier Cornille presents ten of the most important bridges in the world, from the Brooklyn to the Golden Gate; from the first in cast iron to the longest in concrete; from small footbridges to the tallest in the world. Cornille introduces each engineer or architect and the main concepts of their work through charming step-by-step drawings and accessible text. Who Built That? Bridges is a fun primer for children of all ages interested in learning about these incredible structures and the engineering and design concepts behind each one.

Genres: Picture Books, Nonfiction, Science, Architecture, History, Construction, Childrens

96 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Manybooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Didier Cornille's (author and illustrator) and Yolanda Stern Broad's (translator) Who Built That? Bridges: An Introduction to Ten Great Bridges and Their Designers (the French language original title being Tous les ponts sont dans la nature) is interesting, exceedingly educational, evocatively readable and thankfully also not generally replete with too much architectural and construction specific jargon, making this book while perhaps not necessarily suitable and interesting to and for very young toddlers also something for parents, caregivers, teachers to consider sharing with construction and building interested younger children who are not as yet independent readers. For if one were to read Who Built That? Bridges: An Introduction to Ten Great Bridges and Their Designers with or to children, kept the readings to manageable chunks of information and did not attempt to read the entire ninety odd pages at once (which is very easily accomplished, as there are, indeed, ten specific chapters for each of the ten featured bridges), Who Built That? Bridges: An Introduction to Ten Great Bridges and Their Designers could, in my opinion and indeed prove a delightful, pleasurable, as well as enlightening reading or perhaps listening (learning) experience, as both presented narrative and accompanying illustrations are in my humble opinion perfectly suited to one another, with the author's (and by extension of course also the translator's) detailed but simply delineated and well organised printed words equally complimented by accompanying images that are delightful, visually detailed, often actually even somewhat resembling bona-fide construction and building (architect) blueprints (with the small caveat that Who Built That? Bridges: An Introduction to Ten Great Bridges and Their Designers is meant to be read upside-down so to speak, with the spine of the book on top, a bit annoying and difficult perhaps, but really and truly the only way to adequately and visually depict the featured bridges).

Highly recommended, and the one main and sadly unfortunate reason that my ranking is only three stars is that for me personally, the fact that Who Built That? Bridges: An Introduction to Ten Great Bridges and Their Designers includes NO biographical information whatsoever, no list of books for further study and research, is simply too much of a serious academic shortcoming to be in any manner ignored (as the fact that Who Built That? Bridges: An Introduction to Ten Great Bridges and Their Designers is indeed completely non-fictional, is therefore based on historical facts, on realities and thus also on the author's, on Didier Cornille's own research, at least for and to me, this makes biographical lists and source citations not just desirable but in fact absolutely intellectually necessary).

[tracy lou · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am so enamored with this book. I love the gimmick of the changed orientation of the page turn, the simplified colors, the font, all of the paratextual elements, really. It has the feel of a 1950's textbook, including footnotes. The illustrations are simple and clean.

[Julia Hazel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great illustrations and layout. Could include more bridges designed by women or people of color.

[Tammy Flanders · Rating 3 out of 5]

Includes Calgary Peace Bridge.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun non fiction read about bridges.

[Earl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who Built That? was a series I discovered since I'm obsessed with bridges and wanted to make a list of bridges I'd want to visit. It includes a short bio on the architects before going into some details about the many structures it talks about. I love the playfulness of the book format based on what structures the book is talking about. As much as I enjoyed the art, I wished they included photographs of the structures.

[Christina Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

February is learning about the city. This was a nice introduction to bridges. Detail illustrations of the designs and steps to constructing the bridge. Little bios about the architect, how they constructed the bridge, and other facts. The bridges discuss span from late 1700s to 2013. This is more an older children's book but my 4 year old enjoyed it.

[Jackie Ostrowicki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book for STEM learning on engineering and the people who built 10 famous bridges. Published by Princeton Architectural Press.

[Jessica Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is really pretty, but there's very little life to it and I've already forgotten all the bridge names ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Brenda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great resource to encourage kids to ask questions now that they understand what is "new" design and technology

[Jo Oehrlein · Rating 4 out of 5]

An introduction to 10 bridge builders/architects and the innovative choices they made and their amazing designs.

[Jessie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unique size. It is a bit long. So my son skipped quite a bit of it but did enjoy reading the parts he did.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting and informative book to teach children a little bit about architecture and famous bridges around the world. Cornille spotlights ten bridges and their designers chronically from the year that the notable bridge was built. One of the coolest things with this book was how you rotate the book's orientation so that it's spine up to open it, allowing readers to see drawings of the bridges in all of their glory. The illustrations are extremely detailed either in pen and ink or computer generated, allowing readers to see the details of the bridge more clearly than in a photograph. Nevertheless I still ended up Googling each of the bridges for photographs also partly to see if they were all still stading. Cornille lists the year built, the designer, the length, and country of location. He describes how the bridge was built explaining a few previous works of the architect that inspired it as well as its significance. The book opens with the first iron bridge, found in Great Britain and designed by Thomas Farnolls Pritchard. It later describes the Brooklyn Bridge and the perilous and deadly undertaking that it was to build it. I found the Millau Viaduct, designed by Foster and Virlogeux, to be fascinating, as it's the tallest bridge in the world. Cornille's book mentions that one of the Millau Viaduct's designers, Michel Virgoleux, had previously designed the Pont de Normandie (Normandy Bridge). I've seen the Pont de Normandie in person and crossed it and it is similar in design to the Millau Viaduct and awe-inspiring with it's length, spanning the Seine River in France shortly before the river empties into the ocean. Also featured in Cornille's book is the Calatrava Peace Bridge, designed by the same man who designed the new World Trade Center transit center in New York City.

All in all, this book is impressive. I loved how Cornille described the bridges focusing on the problem solved by the bridge and it's unique element of architecture that helped to solve the problem. Nonetheless, the book remains accessible to older children and the layperson who doesn't have a background in architecture. I'd recommend this book for middle-grade children and older - even adults - who are curious about bridges they've seen or even about ways that designers solve problems.

[Christine Turner]

In this latest addition to his popular Who Built That? series, Didier Cornille presents ten of the most important bridges in the world, from the Brooklyn to the Golden Gate; from the first in cast iron to the longest in concrete; from small footbridges to the tallest in the world. Cornille introduces each engineer or architect and the main concepts of their work through charming step-by-step drawings and accessible text.Who Built That? Bridges is a fun primer for children of all ages interested in learning about these incredible structures and the engineering and design concepts behind each one.


Subject: Bridges -- Juvenile literature.
Bridges -- History -- Juvenile literature.
Bridges -- Design and construction -- Juvenile literature.
Civil engineers -- Juvenile literature.
Architecture -- Juvenile literature.
Added Author:
Broad, Yolanda Stern,