Wow! What a book!
A compelling, gripping, emotional read. It is a story about a boy, Alex Douglas, turning eleven and the events that occur on the day of his birthday. Alex desperately wants a dog. However, on the eve of his birthday, sensing he may not get one, he tells his father he hates him. His father leaves for work early the next morning and Alex does not see him. The day of Alex’s birthday is 9/11. His father is a train driver, who drives his train to the World Trade Center every day. The author relays the events of this day with a tact and simplicity, which do not deter from the huge impact of what happened and how it affects the lives of the people involved in this story.
The story is told from three different perspectives: mainly Alex’s, who is unaware of events for a time and has his own adventures when he is sent home from school early. He is dealing with normal preteen life: bullies, birthdays, frustrating parents, annoying siblings, best friends, and computer games. Then there is the ‘man in the white shirt’ who is already at the World Trade Center North Tower when the first plane hits, but his identity remains a mystery until the end of the story. And lastly, an old man waiting for his son to come home from the World Trade Center that day.
All the emotions I had felt on that day, when I watched the towers fall, resurfaced through the simple retelling of the events in this story. I was affected, full of emotion, as I breathlessly read the words aloud. Imagery summoned through simple visualization: a broken picture frame of a family found on the street, the helping of survivors, the burning towers, the exodus of people and a large airplane wheel falling out of the sky.
So many themes and lessons are entwined through this story. The biggest for me: getting what you really desire, only to realise that the other things in life, the ones taken for granted such as family are far more precious, important, and valuable if we ever lost them.
A word of caution…
I didn’t read the blurb properly and I didn’t realise this story took place on the day of 9/11. If I had, I may not have decided to read this story to my nine-year-old twins. The book is sensitive to the middle-grade age group, however I felt there needed to be a level of emotional maturity in the child reading about 9/11. One child was unfazed by the story and already knew all about 9/11. The other did not. There were uncomfortable questions, that I was not prepared for. He wanted to know what terrorists were, he wanted information and to understand, then he wanted reassurance that a terrorist wouldn’t try to kill him. Through this story, he became aware of new (to him) atrocities that humans will commit he feared a new terror. I had to explain this event, whilst making sure that they were both able to sleep at night. Thankfully, because the story is told from three points of view, I always ended on an Alex Douglas chapter and a world the children were familiar with.
An outstanding story, dealing with a difficult subject matter, told with a sensitivity to the readership, without losing any of the impact, emotion and fear, something only an exceptional storyteller can do.