Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Most Anticipated Books of 2025!

Excerpt from Brooklyn Bridge by Karen Hesse, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Summary |  Excerpt |  Reviews |  Beyond the Book |  Readalikes |  Genres & Themes |  Author Bio

Brooklyn Bridge by Karen Hesse

Brooklyn Bridge

by Karen Hesse
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (6):
  • Readers' Rating (6):
  • First Published:
  • Sep 2, 2008, 240 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Sep 2008, 240 pages
  • Rate this book

About this Book

Print Excerpt

July 1903

Chapter One

THE GUYS SAY I'M LUCKY. That I got everything.

They’re right. I am lucky.

I’m the luckiest kid in the world.

Not everyone’s so lucky. I know this.

Take Dilly Lepkoff. Dilly pushes his cart past our store every day, rain or shine. Dilly, in his long apron, he calls, "Pickles! Pickles!" Just hearing his voice I’m drooling, tasting the garlic and vinegar across my tongue. Those pickles of Dilly’s, they suck the inside of your cheeks together. They make the spit go crazy in your mouth.

So Dilly, he knows what he’s doing with a pickle. But is he lucky? That all depends on what you call luck. He and his family, they been to Coney Island, which I have not. That makes him lucky in my book. But Dilly Lepkoff, he’s still looking for a land of gold.

In the Michtom house we got golden land coming out our ears. Does that make me lucky? Ever since school let out I been asking Papa to go to Coney Island. And always the same answer. "We’re too busy, Joseph. Maybe next month."

ON THE CORNER of Tompkins and Hancock, Mr. Kromer’s clarinet cracks its crazy jokes. Mr. Kromer plays that clarinet all day. He stands under the grocer’s awning in his gray checked vest and he plays good. Makes you smile. Makes your feet smile. I hear it, even when I’m playing stickball with the guys halfway down Hancock. Even when I’m planning how to sneak into Washington Park to watch the Superbas. I hear it. Mr. Kromer really knows how to stir up something with that clarinet.

But does that make him lucky? In Rus sia he played clarinet for important people. Now he plays on a street corner in Brooklyn and he keeps the clarinet case open for people to drop coins. I’m not sure, but if you asked Mr. Kromer I don’t think he’d say he’s so lucky.

Papa, he’s lucky. He doesn’t work for coins anymore. We’re not greenies. Not anymore. Papa, he’s been in America sixteen years.

"And I didn’t have a penny when I got here."

"You had to have something, Papa. How could you live if you’re dead broke."

"I lived, Joseph. I’m here, am I not?" Papa says. "And I had nothing." Only he says "nuh- tink."

You get used to it. Everybody got an accent in Brooklyn. Everybody talks a little different. Papa says he doesn’t hear a difference but I do. Same as I hear Mr. Kromer’s clarinet. You gotta listen.

I can’t remember living anywhere but Brooklyn. Only here, above the store, in this crowded flat. Me, Mama, Papa. My kid sister, Emily. My little brother, Benjamin. I like coming home to this place. At least I used to like it. Back when we sold things like toys and cigars and paper, back before we turned the candy shop into a bear factory. Our novelty store with the big glass window, it’s always been like an open book. The whole block, like a row of glass books on a long cement shelf. Even though lately we don’t fix up the display window, I guess I still like coming home to it.

Some kids, they never want to go home. This time last year I didn’t get it. How could anyone not want to go home? I get it now.

Still, I’m lucky. My life, it’s better than most guys have it. I got plenty to eat. I got Mama and Papa both. And they don’t hit. So even though I can’t turn around without bumping into someone, even though I’m always tripping over the ladies who come in to sew, even though most of my time I spend inspecting, sorting, and packing bears, even though my parents don’t have time anymore for me, my sister, my brother, even though the guys in the neighborhood act different with me now, I guess I’m still lucky.

Excerpted from Brooklyn Bridge by Karen Hesse, Copyright © 2008 by Karen Hesse. Excerpted by permission of Feiwel & Friends, a division of Macmillan. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $50 for 12 months or $18 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
Babylonia
by Costanza Casati
From the author of the bestselling Clytemnestra comes another intoxicating excursion into ancient history. When kings fall, queens rise.
Book Jacket
The Memory Library
by Kate Storey
Journey through the pages of this heartwarming novel, where hope, friendship and second chances are written in the margins.
Book Jacket
Let's Call Her Barbie
by Renée Rosen
She was only eleven-and-a-half inches tall, but she would change the world. Barbie is born in this bold new novel by USA Today bestselling author Renée Rosen.
Book Club Giveaway!
Win Help Wanted

Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman

From the best-selling author of The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. comes a funny, eye-opening tale of work in contemporary America.

Enter

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Going Home
    by Tom Lamont

    Going Home is a sparkling, funny, bighearted story of family and what happens when three men take charge of a toddler following an unexpected loss.

  • Book Jacket

    The Secret History of the Rape Kit
    by Pagan Kennedy

    The story of the woman who kicked off a feminist revolution in forensics, and then vanished into obscurity.

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

Y C L a H T W but Y C M H D

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.