Nine, Ten

Bibliography
Baskin, Nora Raleigh. Nine, Ten: A September 11 Story. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2016. Print.

image from:www.simonandschuster.com

My Thoughts
With the 15th anniversary of 9/11 happening this year, I was searching for some possible book purchases for the library when I started hearing about this book. It's aimed at middle grade students, but the librarians in our school district decided to use this title as one of our district-wide books. We also picked a picture book for our younger readers. I'm going to use both at the high school.

The story follows four students a few days before the airplanes fly into the World Trade Center. In fact, the first plane crash doesn't happen until 135 pages into the book. Baskin creates an interesting narrative with these four kids, spread out across the country, and how they were forever affected by one day's events.

As I certainly remember vivid details of that day, the story provides that anticipation (or was it just me because I knew what to expect? I wondered if my daughter would get the same goosebumps when reading the story. She was born in 2003.) that it was an ordinary day until it wasn't.

At the end of the story, the author explains that she "chose the structure of this story to reflect a theme of interconnectivity in our society, in particular between children. I wanted to show how in the end this tragic, diverse event actually brought complete strangers together instead of tearing them apart" (Baskin 194).