Ground Zero: a novel of 9/11 by Alan Gratz - ESSENTIAL

Ground Zero: a novel of 9/11 by Alan Gratz, 336 pages. Scholistic, FEB 2021. $18 

Language: G (4 swears, 0 “f”); Mature Content: G; Violence: PG (deaths; describes true events of 9/11) 

BUYING ADVISORY: EL, MS - ESSENTIAL 

AUDIENCE APPEAL: HIGH 

2001 - 9yo Brandon is in trouble, so he is going to work with his dad today, where he works as a chef at the restaurant on the 107th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. 2019 – 11yo Reshimina is a poor village girl in Afghanistan, just trying to survive the skirmishes between the Afghan rebels and the American soldiers – the Americans who killed her older sister on her wedding day. Why are they even here? 

Wow! Wow! Gratz could have written a whole book about each of these characters separately. Instead in entwines their stories to create an even more powerful narrative. Students who weren’t yet born that day, who don’t understand the lasting scar that these events created on the American psyche, will now have a stark frame of reference. But everyone who reads this, no matter what age, will also be amazed by the power of Reshima’s story. Wow! 

Cindy, Library Teacher, MLS