Monday, October 10, 2011

Nonfiction Monday

Brown, Don. America is Under Attack: The Day the Towers Fell.

My daughter was 3 when 9/11 occurred, so when she had to do a project on it for 8th grade language arts, she had no real memory of the event. This slim volume is aimed at children who would not know any of the details. It follows the time line of events from the point of view of several people involved, showing that some people survived but many others did not. Paired with other books, such as Valerie Bodden's The 9/11 Terror Attacks or Mitch Frank's Understanding September 11th, this will be a valuable resource.

Strengths: This was very informative, and presented in a way that would make sense to even younger students. For older students, it gives a quick overview of the main events, which they need for projects such as my daughter did. Will definitely buy this one for the collection. I can see this being used as a read aloud as well.
Weaknesses: The illustrations make this less scary for younger students, but I would have preferred some photographs.

3 comments:

  1. This looks great. I'm going to look it up. I have some magazines saved with photos, so I can supplement the book with those.

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  2. We sell this in the bookstore, but I haven't read it yet. Good to know it's worth it (although I have to agree that photos would be better).

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  3. I liked the illustrations better than photos, because they were so evocative without being frightening or defeating. I hope this book is in the running for the Sibert.

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