![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/mystical-magical-musical-bridge-228x300.png\")
The Mystical Magical Musical Bridge, with illustrations by Leah Lopez, is aimed at toddlers. \u201cThe moral of our picture book,\u201d Lenhard explains, \u201cis lying and stealing is wrong.\u201d<\/p>\nFor their second adventure in dynamic-duo publishing, longtime friends Jeanne Mansfield and Gail Lenhard have collaborated on a children\u2019s picture book. The Mystical Magical Musical Bridge follows friendly Mr. Fox, who greatly desires to take an egg from a nearby chicken coop, and gobble it down.<\/p>\n
Birds sing, bees buzz happily and white fluffy clouds float over the little bridge he must cross, as the farmhouse sits on the other side of a small river.<\/p>\n
As Mr. Fox approaches the bridge, however, the clouds turn dark and the music stops.<\/p>\n
The Mystical Magical Musical Bridge, with illustrations by Leah Lopez, is aimed at toddlers. \u201cThe moral of our picture book,\u201d Lenhard explains, \u201cis lying and stealing is wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adds Mansfield: \u201cMr. Fox also learns it feels good to do the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some life lessons, of course, are forever. Mansfield, 89, and Lenhard, 71, haven\u2019t had toddlers around for a while now. Most of their grandchildren are adults.<\/p>\n
But these St. Petersburg residents know the meaning of \u201cyoung at heart.\u201d Their previous book, 2022\u2019s I Talk With My Hands, was aimed squarely at small children. It\u2019s the story of an 8-year-old boy who\u2019s deaf, and how he learns to make friends after his family moves to a new city.<\/p>\n
As a volunteer for Goodwill-Suncoast\u2019s Children\u2019s Literacy \u200bProgram, BookWorks, \u201cI was cleaning these books for little toddlers,\u201d explains Mansfield. \u201cAll I could see was \u2018The ball is red. The banana is yellow.\u2019 How boring is that? I thought we were boring these children to death. I thought if you want to hook them on books, that wasn\u2019t the way to do it.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd all of a sudden I thought, hmm \u2026 why don\u2019t we write something a little more interesting? And that produced the book Really?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0The interactive, humorous and colorful Really? (2016) was followed the next year by a sequel, \u00a0Absolutely!<\/p>\n
Lenhard, meanwhile, was a writer and editor who had also published a children\u2019s book, Tree. They met at a meeting of the Society of Children\u2019s Book Writers and Illustrators.<\/p>\n
The two became fast friends and edited each other\u2019s stories; Mansfield is currently editing Lenhard\u2019s first YA (young adult) novel.<\/p>\n
According to Lenhard, the first version of The Mystical Magical Musical Bridge, pre-illustrations, could have been a short story. \u201cIt had too many characters in it, and it was too long for a picture book,\u201d she says. \u201cWe decided we needed to condense it, so we got rid of some characters.\u201d<\/p>\n
From the start, it was a total collaboration. \u201cFor some reason, Gail and I always have the title first,\u201d Mansfield marvels. \u201cI fire two or three lines to her, and she fires back, and the next thing you know we\u2019ve got a book going.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is how we work. There\u2019s Gail, there\u2019s Jeanne, and then when we get together, that\u2019s our voice. We work so well together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Published by St. Petersburg Press, The Mystical Magical Musical Bridge is available through Tombolo Books<\/a>, Amazon<\/a> and the publisher<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For their second adventure in dynamic-duo publishing, longtime friends Jeanne Mansfield and Gail Lenhard have collaborated on a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-384239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}