Setting: Brooklyn, 1903This was a difficult book to rate. I loved the historical fiction aspect of Brooklyn in the early 1900’s. My favorite chapter involved Emily setting up a library for neighbors to check out books! For this I probably would have rated 5 stars, because I love books in this time period about New York. BUT...the “ghosting” parts dropped it down to a three-star rating for me.Memorable Quotes:(Pg.156)-“Lit by thousands of lights, I saw now what the guys meant. It (Coney Island) l...

Wow - I was blown away by this book, perhaps moreso because I didn't expect to be. I am really impressed by Brooklyn Bridge. The setting of turn-of-the-century Brooklyn is vividly brought to life in the reader's imagination through 14-year old Joseph's first-person narration, excerpts describing Coney Island from actual newspapers from that time, and a parallel story of street children living under the Brooklyn Bridge that contrasts with Joseph's comfortable life with a large, loving family. The...

I love this book better than most of the historical fiction books I have read. This story is actually based on the real, Russian immigrant family, that invented the "Teddy Bear." It is set in turn-of-the-century Brooklyn New York. New York was a thriving, crowded city filled with recent immigrants. Joseph Mitchtom is 14 in the summer of 1903. His family owns and operates a candy shop, until a story in the news paper about Teddy Roosevelt refusing to kill an injured and restrained bear on a hunti...

Another skillfully crafted novel by Karen Hesse. This woman has a true gift for taking historical facts and plumping them into characters and lives for us to enjoy, and I am so glad I found this on the shelf. One of the classes with whom I work is in the middle of their big immigration study, so I'm paying particular attention to stories about immigrant families in New York. Also, since I'm a resident of Brooklyn and have worked with traditional Jewish families, this book really piqued my intere...

My Review of BROOKLYN BRIDGE by Karen HesseWell worth the five year wait, award winning author Karen Hesse’s new book, Brooklyn Bridge, is a memorable mix of historical fiction with a trace of enchanting fantasy. Hesse introduces this immigrant tale with a quote by Isaac Newton:” We build too many walls and not enough bridges”. This quote could be considered “a spoiler” if one could interpret its relevance prior to reading the story. However, readers must finish the book in order to see what Ms....

Karen Hesse is back, baby! A person only gets so many golden opportunities in their life, you know. There are only so many times you get a chance to say that someone’s back. Someone who may have taken a small vacation from writing for a while. Karen Hesse is a good example of this. She’s done some picture books and short stories but her last novel, Aleutian Sparrow came out in 2003. Now she’s returned to the field in force and with a full-length no-verse-in-sight middle grade novel on her hands...

This was a coming-of-age novel set during the early 1900s. Joseph is 14 years old, and he is annoyed that not only are his parents working almost all the time following their popular invention of the Teddy Bear but that they make him work on the stupid bears too, and what is worse, he must be the only boy in Brooklyn who hasn't been to Coney Island. Anyway, the novel was well written and informative, and there was quite a surprising plot twist near the end. However, there were numerous vignettes...

This was not an easy book. I'm not talking reading level, but in terms of impact. It was in turns emotionally jarring, spooky, and I wouldn't actually read this to a kid because there were some serious, even scary, situations detailed (made harder to read because they were happening to kids). There were also lighter moments, but they didn't quite balance out the difficult ones.That said, this is one of those books you read and you don't soon forget, for all of those reasons. It was in turn a com...

Joseph feels trapped in his Brooklyn apartment surrounded by the Teddy Bears that his family invented a few months ago. The bears have taken over their lives, their space and their toy store. Now Joseph spends his days stuffing bears, packaging them, and being responsible for his younger brother and sister. And all he longs to do is go to Coney Island, the symbol of all that is fun and all that is not his current life. But life isn't that simple, as he quickly finds out as he faces falling in lo...

This is good and touching, but different than I expected. I thought it was going to be about the apparently epic task of constructing the bridge, as in the McCullough history, The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge, that I want to read.Instead, it is about her fictional version of what life was like for the Russian immigrant family that invented the Teddy Bear, as narrated by a 15-yr-old son. This is all very interesting with funny and sad things about their imme...

Theodore Roosevelt spared a bear cub. This family turned it into a business making Teddy's bears. And life became difficult for the teenage son.So many families pay help but not their own children doing the same work. They are family and that is what the family does. But a teenage boy seeing friends get paid resents being broke.Coney Island is THE place to go over the summer. All the family does is make bears. What happened to real family life? wonders their son.The death of the family matriarch...

This is a sweet tale from the perspective of the main character, Joseph Michtom. His family, in our country's real history, created the ever popular teddy bear. Joseph's story tells of his struggles as a 14-year-old...coming to terms with how his life changes due to the creation of the stuffed bear (friends' perception, family, etc...) and wanting to experience the thrill of Coney Island. Plus, he has a secret about which no one knows, which is revealed at the end. Karen Hesse, one of my favorit...

I loved this book!! This is a wholesome book that can be read by any age 4th grade up. It is about the Michtom family who were the ones that created the teddy bear inspired by Teddy Roosevelt's refusal to shoot a bear cub. It qualifies as historical fiction, but don't tell the kids. They think they hate historical fiction. It also has "interior chapters." (I borrow that term from the "Grapes of Wrath".) The interior chapters are about the children that live under the Brooklyn Bridge and they are...

Initially I was put off by the character of Joseph Michtom: a priveleged boy whining about his good fortune. But Hesse positioned Joseph in such a unique and compelling historical setting -- Brooklyn at the turn of the 20th century, where immigrants struggle for their piece of the American Dream, baseball is becoming the national pastime, and Coney Island is the great equalizer with its entertainments that beckon all who have the dime to get through the gate. So at first, I read in spite of Jose...

I always enjoy historical fiction by Karen Hesse. This story is actually based on the real, Russian immigrant family, that invented the "Teddy Bear." It is set in turn-of-the-century Brooklyn New York. New York was a thriving, crowded city filled with recent immigrants. Joseph Mitchtom is 14 in the summer of 1903. His family ownes and operates a candy shop, until a story in the news paper about Teddy Roosevelt refusing to kill an injured and restrained bear on a hunting trip, inspires his parent...

Okay, here I go again swimming against the chorus of critics, many of whom I think are biased once an author has won an award or two (or three).First of all, there is too much here I've read before. There's the gruff relative with a secret heart of gold doing good works--that's Uncle Chris in Kathryn Forbes' "Mama's Bank Account". There are characters and plotlines from"All of A Kind Family and even "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn"Then there's the fact that this book has multiple personality disorder....

3.6 stars- This makes me want to go to New York

Fourteen-year-old Joseph Michtom knows he’s one of the lucky ones in New York during the early 1900s. He’s the son of a successful Russian immigrant. He’s got a warm place to live, enough food so he doesn’t go hungry, and family to love him. Although sometimes he doesn’t feel so lucky, because his parents no longer spend much time with him now that they are consumed with their new venture—sewing and selling as many of the new “Teddy bears” they created as they can. Joseph’s parents came up with

I did not know that this would have been so good. I did not expect that I would have loved it so much and that I could not stop reading it and pretty much finishing it in one "fell swoop." It seems Dickensian, but that might not be a fair comparison because it is actually quite sparing and except for the intentional repetitive phrasing in those dream-like segments about the children "under the bridge" (and so effective, those poetic passages.. *sigh*), there is not that much repeated sentiment.

Karen Hesse is a wonderful writer of historical fiction who always gets to the heart of her characters. This time we are taken to Brooklyn in 1903, where we become involved in the life of a Russian-Jewish family who have just gotten their lucky break, changing their fortune: they were the first to create a stuffed "teddy's bear", and they can't make them fast enough. Joseph, their son, tells us their story, though he resents the changes to their family and home life that the success brings -- he...