Sky Boys: How They Built the Empire State Building [Hardcover]

Deborah Hopkinson (Author), James E. Ransome (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 4 and up | Grade Level: P and up

The acclaimed team that brought readers the IRA Children’s Book Award—winning Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt is back with a riveting brick-by-brick account of how one of the most amazing accomplishments in American architecture came to be. It’s 1930 and times are tough for Pop and his son. But look! On the corner of 34th Street and 5th Avenue, a building straight and simple as a pencil is being built in record time. Hundreds of men are leveling, shoveling, hauling. They’re hoisting 60,000 tons of steal, stacking 10 million bricks, eating lunch in the clouds. And when they cut ribbon and the crowds rush in, the boy and his father will be among the first to zoom up to the top of the tallest building in the world and see all of Manhattan spread at their feet.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Kindergarten-Grade 4–Hopkinson and Ransome chronicle the construction of this famous building through the eyes of a young boy. The present-tense text gives the book a true You are there feel as the author describes both the actual building process and its significance as a symbol of hope during the Depression era. The pacing is never rushed, but at the same time it moves along at an energetic clip that matches the speed that characterized the construction of this National Historic Landmark. Ransomes stunning oil paintings vary in perspective as readers look up at what was once the tallest building in the world, and then down from dizzying heights as workers perch on girders on the 47th floor, feeding pigeons while taking a break for beef stew and coffee. An authors note reflects the painstaking and careful research done by both author and illustrator to ensure as authentic a presentation as possible. This is a fascinating look at a slice of American history and a worthwhile addition to any collection.–Grace Oliff, Ann Blanche Smith School, Hillsdale, NJ
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Gr. 2-4, younger for reading aloud. Crisp, lyrical free verse and bold paintings celebrate the skill and daring of those who constructed the Empire State Building. During the Great Depression, a young boy learns about plans for the building. As the tower rises, the boy visits the site with his unemployed father and sees in the emerging skyscraper "a symbol of hope / in the darkest of times." The second-person voice occasionally feels like a clumsy reach for connection with the audience: "It's the end of winter, / and your pop's lost his job." But Hopkinson makes the construction details thrilling in skillfully integrated lines, filled with statistics: "This steel is strong and new / only eighty hours old." Ransome's powerful acrylic paintings show the building in all stages of construction, and includes the workers' perilous views. A unique, memorable title, this will enhance poetry and history units and combine well with Susan Goodman's excellent Skyscraper and Connie Ann Kirk's Sky Dancer (both 2004). Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 4 and up
  
• Hardcover: 48 pages
• Publisher: Schwartz & Wade (February 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375836101
• ISBN-13: 978-0375836107
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 0.4 x 11.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #710,308 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Deborah Hopkinson is the award-winning of picture books, fiction, and nonfiction for young readers. She has won the SCBWI Golden Kite Award for Picture Book Text twice, for A Band of Angels and Apples to Oregon. Her book, Sky Boys, How They Built the Empire State Building, was a Boston Globe/Horn Book Honor awardee. Her recent works include Michelle, First Family, Abe Lincoln Crosses a Creek, an ALA Notable, Keep On! The Story of Matthew Henson, Co-Discoverer of the North Pole, which won a 2009 Oregon Book Award, and Stagecoach Sal, named a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2009. She serves as Vice President for Advancement at Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "So Tall It Will Scrape the Sky", July 11, 2007

By 

M. Allen Greenbaum (California) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sky Boys: How They Built the Empire State Building (Hardcover)

In Depression-era New York City, dreams collide with reality. Our unnamed young narrator's father has just lost his job, and so the boy must wander the harsh, cold streets of Manhattan, looking for firewood. However, one day near 34th and 5th streets, he sees a dream unfold, as 3,000 men construct a symbol of triumph and tenacity: the 102-story Empire Stae Building.

The book is magnificent: Powerful images, poetic language, and construction scenes and details merge into a dramatic tale that's both historic and personal. The boy (and sometimes his father) joins other New Yorkers who look in awe at the evolving building. Ms. Hopkinson uses facts and simple, strong words in her descriptions: We see men sinking "210 massive steel columns" 55-feet into the ground, building "a steel forest" that "can bear the full weight of this giant-to-be: 365,000 tons." Flatbeds carry steel beams "from the fiery furnaces of Pittsburgh" through the streets, looking "river surging through the concrete canyons of Manhattan." While strong and almost terse, the writing is somehow concommitantly lyrical. The story teems with action ("hoisting, swinging, spinning") and facts that will fascinate any young reader (and most adults as well).

Two-page action sequences set within the story slow down time so that one can appreciate the danger, the men's skill, and the scope of the project. We see four men (there are no female workers--accurate as far as I know), working as a team to rivet steel girders together: The "Heater Man" tosses hot metal to "the Catcher," who fits it into the girder hole steadied by the "Bucker-up," finally hammered into place by "the Gunman." For adults, it's is a testosterone kick; kids will enjoy the heroism and the sheer grandeur of the construction leading to the finished tower.

Although the city is not as dirty-looking, nor the people as poor as one might expect, there's still a Depression-based realism that doesn't sanitize the workers' hard lives. In one of her best lines, Ms. Hopkinson writes that while each man works as fast as possible, he does so knowing that hundreds down below him would "take his place over his spot in a flash. Yet knowing that the quicker he finishes, the sooner he'll be back in line himself, waiting and desparate for work." There's a subtle but unmistakeable contrast between the gleaming building--and the hard-working but generally vigorous men working on the gleaming building, and those hundreds below them. Another wonderful two-page spread shows the building reaching skyward between June and November. culminating in an illustration of 15 men astride the building's top in March 1931, proud and even gleeful, but also tired.

James E. Ransome's pictures are uniformly spectacular, and it culminates in his noil painting of the Empire State Building at dawn, majestically overlooking the island and beyond, towering over everything else. WE also see the golden placque of the building inside the lobby, the apprehension of the boy and his dad as they ride the elevator to the top, the father's hope ("If we can do this, we can do anything") and one last nighttime view as they head back home, their heads and hearts uplifted ("Look, Pop, we can see it from here.").

'Sky Boys' concludes with some facts about the building and the making of the book, including an acknowledgement to the EMpire State Building Archive at Columbia for the endpaper photographs of workers in dangerous positions. Certainly one of the top 20 books I've read this year, the dramatic words and pictures ensure that this wil be a favorite at home or school.

Note: A good companion book is "Pop's Bridge," a fictionalized history of peril and comraderie while building the Golden Gate Bridge.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dream big, April 14, 2011

By 

M. Heiss (USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sky Boys: How They Built the Empire State Building (Hardcover)

The story of the building of the Empire State Building, told through the eyes of a Depression-era child. Who wouldn't love to be one of those builders? Beautiful, well-done book about a triumph of American engineering and a can-do attitude.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Loaded with color illustrations which bring to life the builder's experience, April 10, 2006

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sky Boys: How They Built the Empire State Building (Hardcover)

Celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Empire State Building's construction is Sky Boys: How They Built The Empire State Building. While vintage black and white photos from the era greet the eye on the inside and back cover pages, the book is loaded with color illustrations which bring to life the builder's experience. The journey to Depression-era Manhattan and a boy who watches its construction brings the promise, hope and allure of the Empire State Building to life.