Never Forget

Today marks the 13th anniversary of 9/11.  It is so hard to believe that it was 13 years ago my sociology professor got a phone call in the middle of class, it was his wife telling him a plane had crashed into the World Trade Tower.  He immediately told us to go home, "This is not where you need to be, this is not good.  Go home and check on your families," he told us.  By the time I got back to my dorm and turned on the television a plane had struck the other tower.  Like everyone else in our country I was shocked and scared.

In the days after 9/11 our country united.  It was probably one of the most patriotic times I can remember in my life time.  Everyone was truly proud to be an American.  Everyone was helping one another, supporting one another.  You could not go anywhere without seeing a flag flying.  It was bright side to a horrific tragedy.

It is crazy to think that most school aged children were not even born when 9/11 happened.  Just like I was not living when Pearl Harbor was bombed, Kennedy was assassinated or Martin Luther King Jr. killed.  But just because I was not alive at the time, does not mean I don't need to know about it.  Our children need to know what happened on 9/11 and more importantly how we came together as Americans to support, reach out and love one another.  It can be a difficult topic to approach, especially with children, so many issues that are hard to understand.  Luckily, we can always turn to literature to help us teach children.

The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, by Mordicai Gernstein is the true story of Philippe Petit, a tightrope walker who dared to walk between the two towers.  Phillipe normally performed in the park.  But when he saw the towers being built he just had to walk between them.  One night him and some friends strung a wire between the two towers and at dawn Phillipe began to walk between them.  Quickly the police ran to the top of the towers yelling, "You are under arrest."  But no one would come and get him as long as he was on the wire.  "For almost an hour he walked back and forth, he walked, danced, ran and knelt in a salute upon the wire."  Eventually he surrendered to the police and was sentenced to performing for children in the park.  The book ends with Phillipe falling, but catching himself, during one of his performances, and telling us the towers are gone now but their memory is still imprinted in the sky.

For kids who know nothing about the towers, this book offers a story about them as well as beautiful pictures.  The reader will also notice how Phillipe, although he fell, was able to catch himself, which is just what America did.  On 9/11 America fell, but we were able to catch ourselves and 13 years later we are still a country where freedom reigns.

How do you talk to your kids about September 11?

Never Forget,
Laura