Who likes waiting? It was a rhetorical question. I don’t know anyone with such unusual preferences. Not within the children category anyways. They want everything to happen immediately, even if it is not physically possible. However, “The Bridge is Up” proves that watching others wait is totally a different kind of game. It can be fun! Especially if those waiting are a bus, a car, a tractor and a few other machines on wheels, with pigs and dogs as drivers and passengers. When “The bridge is up… everyone has to wait”. But when “the bridge is down”, then “nobody has to wait!”
This cute picture book, next to being a sunny and funny story, it is also a brightly illustrated (by Rob Hefferan) lesson of grammar. It shows the practical use of pronouns everybody and nobody, and the modals can and can’t. Besides, the story consists of lists and repetitions, that enhance children’s memory and diction: “The bus can’t go, the car can’t go and the bike can’t go”. The line grow longer as new vehicles approach the bridge. Children can have lots of fun trying to memorize which vehicle was the first, second, third and so on.
After reading this book, waiting at the traffic lights, or waiting for a bridge to go down, or a railway gate to go up will never be the same for your little passengers.
