Which sentence in this excerpt from “Behold the Brooklyn Bridge” best shows the narrator’s young and naïve perspective? "They said it couldn't be done, but they did it," Papa kept repeating, almost like he half believed it himself. We had been hearing about the building of the Great East River Bridge for years, with its deals gone bad, workers with illnesses, and defiance of something called physics.

We weren't quite sure what it all meant, except that for now, my sister Rachel and I were putting on our finest dresses and the shoes Mother had polished twice.

Soon we were out the door as a family, going to walk on a bridge taller than the entire city. There were so many people, but we were determined. Our modest Brooklyn family was going to walk high up in the air on the miracle of a bridge to Manhattan.

The sunshine warmed my shoulders as we joined the masses of people walking toward the river. I stretched onto my tiptoes to see the swarm of boats gathering underneath the bridge up ahead. I gasped quietly when I saw the enormous expansion before me. “There it is!” I exclaimed.

“Yes, there’s the Great East River Bridge,” Papa said looking down at me.