Azadeh Westergaard

The Band in Our Basement After their dance moves result in a “CRASH,” two siblings worry they’ll be caught staying up late to listen to Daddy’s band practice (“The music stops.../ Our stomachs drop”). But when no one comes to scold them, they sneak down to the basement for a closer listen.

“People say it’s impossible,” begins this sprawling history of the now-iconic Golden Gate Bridge’s construction. Narrated from the perspective of a lighthouse keeper’s children, who watch the building over several years, the accounting reveals how naysayers believe the distance is too great, the fog too dense, the wind and tides too strong. The children watch as dynamite blows away stone, creating a site to anchor suspension cables. Heck (A Is for Bee) divides the spreads horizontally throughout.

Jyoti Rajan Gopal, illus. by Nabi H. Ali.