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If you go:

When: Saturday, November 19, 2011, 1-4 p.m.

Where: Meet at Floyd’s Coffee, Northwest First Avenue and Couch Street

Cost: $55, includes a Portland-Vancouver Bridges poster

One Hundred percent of proceeds to Big & Awesome

After 20 years of leading tours of Portland’s bridges, Sharon Wood Wortman, author of聽The Portland Bridge Book, is working on a children’s book about the local bridges,聽The Big & Awesome Bridges of Portland & Vancouver鈥擜 Book for Young Readers.

Wortman plans to donate 5,000 free copies of the full-color, hardcover book to third grade classrooms in Portland Public Schools and fourth grade classrooms in the Vancouver, Wash., School District.

鈥淚t’s not cheap,鈥� Wortman said. 鈥淧PS has been teaching about Portland’s bridges since at least the 1950s, but there’s never been comprehensive book for young people.鈥�

Wortman is raising some of the funds to print the new book by hosting 鈥渂ridge walks鈥� with her husband Ed Wortman, who worked as a Multnomah County bridge engineer. The tours include a visit to the Oregon Department of Transportation Region 1 bridge museum and Traffic Management Operations Center, a meeting with the operator of the Burnside Bridge, and weather permitting, a test lift while standing mid-span or inside the bridge tower.

Much of the book is already finished, including patterns in back of the book that students can use to build their own replicas of Portland’s bridges. Students from the engineering program at Portland State University are slated to visit the classrooms to facilitate the bridge building and load test activity.

Those who cannot walk but wish to make a donation may visit聽. All donations are tax deductible.