Building the Empire State Building: An Interactive Engineering Adventure

by Allison Lassieur

Overview

The Roaring 20s are in high gear, and so is skyscraper fever in New York City. People are fascinated by the plans to build the Empire State Building the worlds tallest building yet. Will you: Be an eager young assistant at the architecture firm Shreve, Lamb, and Harmon, the firm designing the Empire State Building? Join the project as a construction worker high atop the building as it rises above the city? Work as a water boy who carries water to the thirsty construction workers on the project? Experience situations taken from real life. YOU CHOOSE what you'll do next. The choices you make will either lead you and the project to success or to failure.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781491428887
Publisher:	Capstone Press
Publication date:	08/01/2014
Series:	You Choose: Engineering Marvels Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	112
File size:	10 MB
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Allison Lassieur has written more than 100 books on many topics, including history, biography, science, and current events. She has also written fiction novels and short stories, puzzles, and activities. When she isn't busy writing, Allison enjoys knitting, spinning, and reading good novels. Allison lives in Trenton, Tennessee with her husband, daughter, and a houseful of pets.

Editorial Reviews

One of the titles in the “You Choose” series, this book, focused on the development and construction of the Empire State Building from the perspective of various people who worked on the building, allows readers to read three story paths with myriad choices and fifteen endings. The stories begin with a broad overview of the history of tall buildings and the public fascination with them. Then it continues with the experiences of an architect who helped design the building: a riveter from Brooklyn who was involved in the actual construction, and a water boy who worked there later on. Through each storyline, readers find out factual information about the Great Depression, design and building constraints, innovative ideas that helped to make the building happen, the impact of injuries on construction, and so on. By learning about the building from a person involved with the project, readers get a much more realistic understanding of why the Empire State Building is important on so many levels. This well-written book (and series) handles factual information extremely well and will inspire interest in the subject for middle grade readers. Reviewer: Jean Boreen, Ph.D.; Ages 8 to 12.

Children's Literature - Jean Boreen

11/01/2014
Gr 5–8—These "Choose Your Own Adventure"—style books invite readers to assume roles as architects and builders of sites that set historical records in their magnitude. A bit of introductory history is followed by a stop-and-start account that asks readers to flip to different pages based on the choices they make. The fragmented nature of the series can be confusing, and despite the creative take on the topic, some of the writing is on the dry side. Readers who perservere will be presented with a grim, realistic view of the human cost of these large-scale projects (many of the options end with the death or dismissal of the worker) and some interesting sketches of history. Two "Further Paths to Explore" suggest exercises in reading and writing to aid students with key ideas and details. More ambitious than appealing, these will best serve as supplemental material for classroom units dealing with famous structures.

School Library Journal