Towers Falling

[psocoptera]

Towers Falling, Jewell Parker Rhodes, MCBA book. I thought this was going to be the historical-fiction treatment for 9/11 but it's actually about a contemporary (2016) 5th grader who's never heard of 9/11 learning about it, thus being a teaching vehicle for *your* 5th grader who's never heard of it to learn about it. I didn't like this at all; I thought it was forced and heavy-handed and didactic, and the writing was choppy. But god knows I don't want to talk to my kids about 9/11 but it's important cultural context for so much shit in the US since then, so respect to Rhodes for stepping up to do something about that. I can only assume it'll become a staple in schools the way Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes was for people my age. I think it'll work, for that purpose: it hits all the points and POVs it needs to and doesn't gloss over things kids might hear about elsewhere. I was reading along like "how far is Rhodes going to go with this" and the answer was all the way to the jumpers, which I don't know that I would have had the resolve to include, if I had been trying to tackle this.