This Bridge Will Not Be Gray

by Dave Eggers, Tucker Nichols (Illustrator)

Overview

One of Publishers Weekly's Best Picture Books of 2015.

The Golden Gate Bridge is the most famous bridge in the world. It is also, not entirely coincidentally, the world’s first bright-orange bridge. But it wasn’t supposed to be that way.

In this book, fellow bridge-lovers Dave Eggers and Tucker Nichols tell the story of how it happened—how a bridge that some people wanted to be red and white, and some people wanted to be yellow and black, and most people wanted simply to be gray, instead became, thanks to the vision and stick-to-itiveness of a few peculiar architects, one of the most memorable man-made objects ever created.

Told with playful paper cut-outs and irresistible prose, This Bridge Will Not Be Gray is a joyful history lesson in picture-book form—a gorgeously crafted story that teaches us how beauty and inspiration tend to come from the most unexpected places. Sometimes you have to fight for what you believe in, even if it’s just a color.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781452165882
Publisher:	Chronicle Books
Publication date:	07/26/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	54
File size:	12 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	5 - 8 Years

About the Author

Dave Eggers is the best-selling author of ten books including A Hologram for the King, a finalist for the National Book Award; Zeitoun, winner of the American Book Award and Dayton Literary Peace Prize; and What Is the What, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and winner of France’s Prix Medici. Eggers lives in Northern California with his wife and two children.

Tucker Nichols is an artist based in Northern California. His work has been featured at the Drawing Center in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Denver Art Museum, Den Frie Museum in Copenhagen, and the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. His drawings have been published in McSweeney's, The Thing Quarterly, Nieves Books and the Op-Ed pages of The New York Times.

Editorial Reviews

★ 09/21/2015
Simple questions make fine picture books. Why is the Golden Gate Bridge orange? National Book Award finalist Eggers (A Hologram for the King) begins before the bridge was built, as some Bay Area residents protest the idea: “It will mar the beauty of the land, they said. What’s wrong with boats? they said.” But the project goes ahead, and public opinion swings around to support it. Eggers’s featherlight humor provides laughs throughout, as in the description of the bridge’s steel parts journeying through the Panama Canal: “It was a long trip, but the pieces of steel did not mind, for they are inanimate objects.” Although the Navy wants to stripe the bridge black and yellow, and most people expect it to be gray, Irving Morrow, the project’s idiosyncratic champion, defends the vivid orange of the steel’s anti-rust paint, making the proclamation that gives the book its title. Nichols’s (Crabtree) construction-paper cutouts and hand-lettering provide a series of puckish visual counterpoints for the story’s two important messages: that situations and objects that appear unchangeable do, in fact, come from somewhere, and that adults can squabble even more foolishly than children. Ages 3–up. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2015

A Junior Library Guild Selection

One of Cool Mom Picks Best Children's Book of 2015

"Occasionally a book—think Donald Crews’s classic 'Freight Train'—delivers mechanical accuracy along with poetic precision. 'This Bridge Will Not Be Gray' is one of those rare fusions. It’s a story about the history of the Golden Gate Bridge that is a graphic looker? As you might hope for a book whose climax rests on the revelation of a color, the illustrations deliver in a big way."
—The Boston Globe

"This is a children’s book, but one need not be a child to warm to its celebration of a span that is 'bold and courageous and unusual and even strange'... [Nichols] breathes life into the bridge’s origins with colorful cut-paper art."”
—San Francisco Chronicle

"Eggers’s lyrical prose and Nichols’s whimsical cut-paper illustrations tell the fascinating true story of how the Golden Gate Bridge came to be, and their glorious collaboration is an ode to creativity, a song in praise of inspiration over mediocrity."
—The Buffalo News

"A story compelling enough to keep adults interested as they read it (and re-read it and re-read it) each night at bedtime."
—FastCo.Design

"This Bridge Will Not be Gray is filled with fun illustrations and Egger's witty prose, compelling for any kid or adult on your holiday gift list."
—7x7

"Simple questions make fine picture books. Why is the Golden Gate Bridge orange? National Book Award finalist Eggers (A Hologram for the King) begins before the bridge was built, as some Bay Area residents protest the idea: ‘It will mar the beauty of the land, they said. What’s wrong with boats? they said.” But the project goes ahead, and public opinion swings around to support it. Eggers’s featherlight humor provides laughs throughout, as in the description of the bridge’s steel parts journeying through the Panama Canal: “It was a long trip, but the pieces of steel did not mind, for they are inanimate objects.” Although the Navy wants to stripe the bridge black and yellow, and most people expect it to be gray, Irving Morrow, the project’s idiosyncratic champion, defends the vivid orange of the steel’s anti-rust paint, making the proclamation that gives the book its title. Nichols’s (Crabtree) construction-paper cutouts and hand-lettering provide a series of puckish visual counterpoints for the story’s two important messages: that situations and objects that appear unchangeable do, in fact, come from somewhere, and that adults can squabble even more foolishly than children. Ages 3—up. (Nov.)"
—Publishers Weekly (starred)

"Dave Eggers brings charm and a subtle wryness to this true story of the building of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, with amazing details brought to life by Tucker Nichols’s papercut illustrations, that will keep even adults interested. Don’t be surprised if your kid ends up quoting facts about it at the dinner table for the next month."
?Cool Mom Picks

"Eggers’s text is sprightly and tongue in-cheek... Nichols brings a similar sensibility to his whimsical paper cutout pictures, while his dust jacket is something of a tour de force, unfolding to offer a poster-size picture of the beloved bridge, a span that continues to dazzle. Happily, Eggers and Nichols’ colorful work dazzles, too."
—Booklist (starred)

"An iconic bridge in a city known for its eccentricity deserves a biography to match, and the Golden Gate Bridge gets one here. The easygoing cadence and restrained humor of Eggers's storytelling are instantly engrossing, and Nichols's bold paper-cut artwork makes as strong an impact as the bridge's emblematic hue."
—Publishers Weekly's Best Books of 2015 List

"An inspiring testament to making bold choices—orange!—and having the courage of one's convictions. (Bonus: The book jacket folds into a poster.)"
—Shelf Awareness

"[Dave Eggers] has released a beautiful picture book about the history of his city’s iconic and famously colored bridge... Tucker Nichols illustrated the book with paper cutouts, an inventive approach that is both whimsical and artistic mastery. The book is as lovely as it is architecturally informative, combining narrative, historical relevance and engaging texture."
—Winston-Salem Journal

From the Publisher

12/01/2015
Gr 3 Up—"Sometimes you have to fight for what you believe in, even if it's just a color." This extensive homage to one of the most famous landmarks in the world, the Golden Gate Bridge, is quirky yet pleasing. Unassuming text conveys a bit of history about the Bay area and its ultimate quest to create a passageway from the bay to the Pacific Ocean. Paper-cut images playfully depict the faces of people who were involved with the project and those who voiced opinions about how it should ultimately look. The visual simplicity adds charm and makes this story welcoming to a wide array of readers. The length makes it perfect for sharing with those with shorter attention spans, yet it is informative and engaging for independent readers. Obviously a labor of love, it will inspire readers to find the beauty in man-made architectural wonders around the world. The book jacket unfolds into a giant poster of the Golden Gate Bridge. VERDICT A pleasing picture book that spans a variety of needs, aesthetics, and audiences.—Carol Connor, Cincinnati Public Schools, OH

School Library Journal

2015-07-15
Gray bridges abound, but there's only one major one that's orange—and here's how that happened. Striving for whimsy when he's not being patronizing—"It was a long trip, but the pieces of steel did not mind, for they are inanimate objects"—Eggers tracks the building of the Golden Gate Bridge from rejected design proposals ("It was functional, but it was grotesque") on. Along with giving the bridge's innovative features a light once-over, he introduces the project's three main architects. One had designed the Manhattan Bridge, "believed to be in or near New York City," as Eggers coyly puts it; another led the populist campaign to keep the finished structure the International Orange with which its prefabricated steel parts were (and still are) coated because it "somehow looked right." Whether young readers will find these observations, or such lines as, "Sometimes the things humans make baffle even the humans who make them," illuminating is anybody's guess. In broad collages assembled from large pieces of cut paper, Nichols illustrates the enterprise with stylized portrait heads and abstract views of golden hills set against blue (or sometimes gray) expanses of sea and sky. The finished bridge poses grandly in several. That it's the "best-known and best-loved bridge in the world" is arguable; if it is, one wonders why it needs a self-conscious, 104-page picture book to draw attention to it. (jacket poster) (Informational picture book. 7-9)

Kirkus Reviews