Stories of 9/11 often begin with a perfect September Tuesday.
The sky was robin’s-egg blue. There were one or two fluffy, almost decorative clouds. It was late-summer warm, so the air was still and clear, not the least bit humid. Warm the exact way you would set the temperature of the earth, if you could. Clear, with just enough breeze so you knew you were outside, breathing fresh air. People would remember that day with all sorts of adjectives: serene, lovely, cheerful, invigorating, peaceful, quiet, astounding, crystalline, blue.
Perfect.
Until 8:46 a.m.”
What did that sky look like? Like the Memorial Wall at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. We went to the museum in 2017, and I was struck with how it was designed, beginning with this bright open space and then moving into a smaller space that was cramped and chaotic.
A similar movement happens in this story. It begins on 9/9, at Chicago O’Hare International Airport, where we are introduced to four middle-school students: Aimee, Sergio, Naheed, and Will. None of them know each other. On 9/10, we see each of them in their homes, in Los Angeles, Brooklyn, Columbus, and Shanksville. On 9/11, the perfect day turns terrible. And in the epilogue, “One Year Later,” they all gather at the World Trade Center site to mark the one-year anniversary. They see each other and interact as parts of the crowd, but each is living out their unique story, individual and collective, side by side.
Sometimes we tell Before and After stories as if Before was as perfect as a September sky and After was apocalypse. The truth is more cloudy. Most of us that Tuesday morning were already dealing with something. That’s how we meet these four students — grappling with a move across the country, poverty, insecurity regarding a hijab, and grief over a father’s death. When the storm comes, it hits them where they are, already trying to navigate choppy weather patterns.
I’m going to give a spoiler that is crucial for why this book works well for middle-grade readers: none of the young protagonists loses someone they love in the attacks. Every one of them could have, and a lot of the novel’s suspense is wondering, Oh no — is she about to go into that building? Are they about to get on that flight? The choice to not focus 9/11 stories around personal experiences of death is wise. The terrorist attacks changed life for all of us. We’re reminded of that every time we get on a plane.
For these four students, some of the change that comes in the wake of the terrorist attack is not a bad thing; their After contains some good. There’s nothing like a tragedy to make you seize the moment.
That aspect of the story made me think of the musical, Come From Away, about what happened when 38 planes were diverted to Gander International Airport, Newfoundland, on 9/11. It’s a story of kindness, and about how life changes in unexpected ways. Maybe you find true love. Maybe you break up. Maybe you finally tell your story because you realize that when those planes were crashed, “All those stories … gone.” Suddenly, like those 7,000 passengers and these four kids, you find yourself.
Somewhere, in the middle of nowhere,
in the middle of who knows where,
there you’ll find
Something in the middle of nowhere,
in the middle of clear blue air,
you found your heart, but left a part of you behindfrom 38 Planes: Reprise
For Generation Z and those unnamed, upcoming young people, 9/11 is a constant. It either happened before they were born or when they were so young that they’ve never known a different world. They will face other Afters that interrupt their clear blue mornings. This book is for them.
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The next Children’s Book Club will meet Friday, October 9. We’ll read a spooky book — Just Beyond: The Scare School by R.L. Stine, his first graphic novel.
Photo by sagesolar, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Megan Willome.
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“Megan Willome has captured the essence of crow in this delightful children’s collection. Not only do the poems introduce the reader to the unusual habits and nature of this bird, but also different forms of poetry as well.”
—Michelle Ortega, poet and children’s speech pathologist
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L.L. Barkat says
Thank you, Megan, for bringing this story to us.
I love the memorial in such strange ways. How the water goes down and down into nothingness, but that same water recycles back upward to fall again into the cavernous depths. I was so glad they didn’t rebuild on the site but just created those falls in the very space of loss.
I remember that clear sky day. My new baby in the back seat. The news and the long, long aftermath.
Megan Willome says
We each have a story, don’t we?
And I found the memorial very moving, both the fountains outside and the museum inside, which seemed less about teaching you something and more about making you feel what it was like to be there.
L.L. Barkat says
Thinking back. Realizing she was not new. How funny. But she was a teenie beanie. And still in the baby seat. So my memory of it is “new baby.” Well, see how we craft our stories? 😉
Megan Willome says
There was a poem about that recently at American Life in Poetry called “Everywhere A River” by Emily Ransdell:
https://www.americanlifeinpoetry.org/columns/detail/803
L.L. Barkat says
! I asked Rick to get permission to reprint that in Every Day Poems. Not sure if we got it or not.
Yes, this:
“Sometimes you have to tell a story
your entire life to get it right.”
Sandra Heska King says
Oh, this story…
I was reading something about Todd Beamer the other day. I did not realize / remember that he was born in Michigan–only about half an hour from where I was in nursing school, having started just a couple months prior. I did not realize that he had only just returned from Italy with his wife, having won that trip for sales production. Instead of flying out that night for a meeting the following day, he chose family time and a next-morning flight. He was a baseball / softball player, a youth leader, and about to be a new dad for the third time. The stories that could have been…
We refer to that day as 9/11. I always have to stop to remember the year. I shouldn’t. It was a year + a month before the oldest grandgirl was born. I was on my way to Bible study when the first plane hit. I heard the news on the radio. They reported a “small” plane had hit the tower.
I’ve never been to the Memorial. That was on the docket for this past April.
Megan Willome says
Sandy, these connections we realize we have with the people that day–they’re so important in helping shape our lives. What we choose, never knowing what Day it actually is.