Hey Kid, Want to Buy A Bridge? [Hardcover]

Jon Scieszka (Author), Adam McCauley (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 18, 2002 | Age Level: 7 and up | Grade Level: 2 and up | Series: Time Warp Trio (Book 11)

"Joe, Sam, and Fred are really good at meeting people, making friends-and enemies-in all different places and times. But this time everything is completely different! It's Brooklyn, it's the 1880s, and some crazy guy's trying to build a bridge all the way across to Manhattan. Meanwhile, their great-granddaughters, who have inherited The Book are doing a little time-traveling of their own, and they need some help. The guys just want to get back to their simple, ordinary twenty-first century lives. But will they find a way out before things get too far out of hand?

""You say there's nothing in your library for boys to read? Never fear, the Time Warp Trio is here."" (Booklist)"

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Joe, Fred, and Sam, the Time Warp Trio, should know better by now than to mess around with The Book--a magical book given to Joe by his uncle. But this time they really think they have things under control... until Sam's latest invention, the Graphi-Sonic, accidentally interfaces with The Book, and the boys wind up traveling back in time to 1877. At least they recognize the turf--it's still their hometown of Brooklyn, minus the cars and skyscrapers. And plus one very addled Thomas Edison. Not to mention the trio's great-granddaughters from the future, who have (still with us?) inherited The Book. Now, all they have to do is find The Book (which is missing again) and skedaddle back to the future before the phonograph and light bulb and Edison's other inventions lose their chance of being invented.

The many fans of Jon Scieszka's Time Warp Trio sequence (2095, etc.) will be thrilled to delve into another illogical, madcap, even slightly educational adventure with the hapless time-traveling lads. (Ages 7 to 11) --Emilie Coulter

From School Library Journal

Grades 3-5--This adventure finds the boys in New York City, perched on top of a Brooklyn Bridge tower. At first they believe that they have traveled into the future (complete with space aliens), mainly because they encounter their great-granddaughters once again. They discover, however, that they are visiting Brooklyn before the bridge was completed. In fact, it is 1877. "The Book" and Sam's invention, "a Graphic Sonic," have somehow combined to propel them into the past, leaving them in the precarious situation of trying to get back to their own time. They also meet a "zapped" Thomas Edison, who may or may not become a great inventor. How the trio, their great-granddaughters, and baseball set everything aright makes for a fun read. Another winning entry in the series.
Kay Bowes, Concord Pike Library, Wilmington, DE
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 7 and up
  
• Hardcover: 80 pages
• Publisher: Viking Juvenile; 1st Ed. edition (March 18, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067089916X
• ISBN-13: 978-0670899166
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #720,206 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jon Scieszka was born in Flint, Michigan on September 8th, 1954. He grew up with five brothers, has the same birthday as Peter Sellers and the Virgin Mary, and a sneaking suspicion that the characters in his Dick and Jane reader were not of this world. Those plain facts, plus his elementary school principal dad, Louis, his registered nurse mom, Shirley (who once took Jon's Cub Scout den on a field trip to the prenatal ward), Mad Magazine, four years of pre-med undergrad, "The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show", an M.F.A. in Fiction from Columbia University, Robert Benchley, five years of painting apartments in New York City, his lovely wife Jeri Hansen who introduced him to Molly Leach and Lane Smith, Green Eggs and Ham, his teenage daughter Casey and almost teenage son Jake, ten years of teaching a little bit of everything from first grade to eighth grade, and the last twenty years of living in Brooklyn...are just some of Jon's answers to the questions, "Where do you get your ideas?" and/or "How did you become a writer?" I don't know, just because, none of your beeswax, and flapdoodle poppycock and balderdash are some more of Jon's answers to questions you can imagine on your own. Jon met up with Lane Smith around 1986 or so, and nothing has been the same since. Their first book, the wiseguy fairy tale retelling, The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs! was initially rejected by most publishers as "too weird" and "too sophisticated". Published by Viking in 1989, The True Story has now sold over a million copies, been translated into ten languages, and been called a "classic picture book for all ages". Jon and Lane's The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales (1992) took the world of the picture book a few steps further. Goofing with the conventions of fairy tales and even being a book, The Stinky Cheese Man became a household word, sold another mess of copies in multiple languages, offended a few purists, and still managed to win a Caldecott Honor medal. Math Curse (1995) further stretched the notion of what subjects make good picture books, selling more books faster than either 3 Little Pigs or Stinky Cheese, and winning a whole slew of awards --all for a book full of mathematics.More recently, Jon and Lane have resurrected fables (in the smart, funny, and a little bit wicked way Aesop would have wanted them) in their latest collaboration, Squids Will Be Squids (1998). No telling where they might take the picture book next. Someone once wrote, "Jon Scieszka has forever changed the face of children's literature." And while there is still some confusion over exactly who that someone was, and whether children's literature does, in fact, have a face, most would agree-from The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs! to Squids Will Be Squids, since Scieszka put pen to paper, children's literature sure has been...different.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoroughly enjoyable, March 25, 2002

By 

Ben Meister (Boston, Mass) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hey Kid, Want to Buy A Bridge? (Hardcover)

I like the part when Thomas Edison keeps repeating, "So what and be quiet you weanie". I also enjoyed the book because it was very adventurous...