Clear color photographs and a brief text show the step-by-step process involved in constructing a modern office building, specifically the M.I.T. Strata Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which was designed by Frank O. Gehry. Richard Sobol took the photographs over a three-year period, beginning in 2001 with the excavation. Although there is plenty of heavy-lifting and earth-moving action for young construction enthusiasts, the focus here is on the workers, from architects and carpenters to electricians and masons. Terms used in the text that might be unfamiliar to young children, such as “excavation” and “scaffold,” are defined in smaller print at the bottom of each double-page spread. (Ages 3–6)

Put on your hard hat and step inside the construction zone: you're invited on a virtual tour of a building in progress. Put on your hard hat and step inside CONSTRUCTION ZONE! Caution! Construction zone ahead! Anyone who has ever stopped to watch a big building going up - and who hasn't? - will be thrilled by this behind-the-scenes look at an amazing construction project. Young readers are invited to come on a virtual tour of a building in progress, led by award-winning photographer Richard Sobol. It takes hundreds of workers, thousands of trucks and machines, and millions of nails and bolts to transform an idea on paper into an actual building in which people will live, play, shop, or work. Every single piece of the construction puzzle - big and small - must fit together flawlessly. With a clear, direct narrative and handy definitions of construction-related jobs, machines, and terms, Cheryl Willis Hudson distills this most complex of projects into language a young child can grasp. The building itself - the Stata Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Frank O. Gehry - is playful and colorful, sculpted to excite, delight, and surprise. Richard Sobol's vivid color photographs capture all the excitement of the busy construction site, while offering a close-up view of its breathtaking genius.