September 11, 2001: Attack on New York City
Grade 7 Up-An introduction and epilogue offer facts surrounding the events of 9/11; three middle chapters present the personal sagas of selected individuals, told in the third person. Hampton had direct access to four of the men, while the stories of Rudy Giuliani, the firefighters of Ladder Co. #6, and Mohammed Atta (a Flight 11 hijacker) were put together from secondary sources. "The Attack" presents readers with photographs of the individuals and descriptions of their morning activities on September 11. "Flight" provides riveting details of escape, or, in the case of James Kenworthy, who was en route to work at the Towers, the difficult decision of whether to turn back to his children's schools or head toward the inferno where his wife was. "Aftermath" portrays how different individuals approached loss. Ironically, the weakest story is that of the author, then an editor at the New York Times. His account of watching the news and eventually resuming his normal pursuits of opera and theater comes across as static and empty in comparison to the other accounts, and seems a bit self-indulgent. Captioned black-and-white photographs of the now-familiar images of dazed and wounded New Yorkers and the Towers's collapse are interspersed throughout. Those libraries collecting comprehensively on the subject will want to select this book. Companion titles, adding other voices, include Tamara Roleff's America under Attack: Primary Sources (Lucent, 2002) and Annie Thoms's With Their Eyes (HarperCollins, 2002).Wendy Lukehart, Washington DC Public LibraryCopyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.