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Summary
Summary
From award-winning author Jewell Parker Rhodes comes a powerful novel set fifteen years after the 9/11 attacks in a classroom of students who cannot remember the event but live through the aftermath of its cultural shift.
When her fifth-grade teacher hints that a series of lessons about home and community will culminate with one big answer about two tall towers once visible outside their classroom window, Dèja can't help but feel confused. She sets off on a journey of discovery, with new friends Ben and Sabeen by her side. But just as she gets closer to answering big questions about who she is, what America means, and how communities can grow (and heal), she uncovers new questions, too. Like, why does Pop get so angry when she brings up anything about the towers?
Award-winning author Jewell Parker Rhodes tells a powerful story about young people who weren't alive to witness this defining moment in history, but begin to realize how much it colors their every day.
Author Notes
Jewell Parker Rhodes is an award-winning author. Her books include Voodoo Dreams, Magic City, Douglass' Women, Season, Moon, Hurricane, and the children's book, Ninth Ward. She is also the author of the writing guides Free Within Ourselves: Fiction Lessons for Black Authors and The African American Guide to Writing and Publishing Nonfiction.
Her work has been published in Germany, Italy, Canada, Turkey, and the United Kingdom and reproduced in audio and for NPR's "Selected Shorts." Rhodes honors include: the American Book Award, the National Endowment of the Arts Award in Fiction, the Black Caucus of the American Library Award for Literary Excellence, the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award for Outstanding Writing, and two Arizona Book Awards.
Rhodes is the Virginia G. Piper Chair in Creative Writing and Artistic Director of Piper Global Engagement at Arizona State University.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (6)
Horn Book Review
Fifth grader Dhja and her five-person family recently moved to a New York City homeless shelter. In her new school they're learning about the September 11 attacks; discoveries she makes with two friends lead her to better understand her father's breathing problems and general sadness. While the book is preachy and slightly saccharine, the character development feels natural and the subject material is treated with dignity. (c) Copyright 2017. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
School Library Journal Review
Gr 4-7-The Avalon Family Residence might sound nice, but it's not: "peeling paint, cockroaches...our tiny room." Dèja, her parents, and her two younger siblings are homeless, currently staying in a Brooklyn shelter. Her father can't work, and her exhausted mother is menially employed. As Dèja starts fifth grade in a new school, she shields herself with bluster and anger against being judged, but she's surprised to find a welcoming teacher and even two wonderful friends. A series of class assignments about home, social circles, and relationships eventually lead Dèja to discover the tragic events of 9/11 for the very first time-and how the event has been directly affecting her own family ever since. Rhodes melds recent history with a timeless, resonating narrative celebrating family and friends; as immediate as 9/11 still feels for many, a whole generation has come of age in the ensuing 15 years. The author narrates, but unfortunately she is distractingly shrill and unnecessarily overwrought, especially when voicing Dèja. VERDICT As relevant as Rhodes's story is, readers are advised to turn to the page for the more compelling experience. ["Recommended as an addition to middle grade collections and as a classroom group reading title to help facilitate classroom conversations about 9/11": SLJ 3/16 review of the Little, Brown book.]--Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon, Washington, DC © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
With the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approaching, Dèja's fifth-grade teacher draws the students' attention to the skyline outside their classroom window, pointing out where the towers once stood. At first, Dèja is unable to fathom how something that happened so long ago could have any bearing on her, especially when she has more immediate problems-her family is currently living in a shelter. But she learns that the events of 9/11 have a long reach, affecting those closest to her in ways large and small. Rhodes (Sugar) gives readers an approachable entry point to consider the terrorist attacks of 9/11, as well as homelessness, discrimination, divorce, and other subjects. Through Dèja's interactions with classmates from a range of backgrounds (Dèja is African-American, and her new friends Sabeen and Ben have Turkish and Mexican heritage, respectively), readers will develop a richer understanding of what it means to be American, as well as the interconnectedness of the present and past. Rhodes approaches a complex, painful topic with insight and grace, providing context to an event distant to the book's audience. Ages 8-12. Agent: Michael Bourret, Dystel & Goderich Literary Management. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Sure, moving from Brooklyn and into the Avalon Family Residence doesn't sound that bad, but for Dèja and her family, it's just a fancy way of saying that they live in a homeless shelter. The one good thing to come out of the move is that Dèja finally gets to go to a good school. Used to being a tough girl, she is quick to bristle, but two patient students Sabeen, a Muslim, and Ben, a displaced country boy soon win her over. Fifteen years after the September 11 attacks, their school strives to teach about the tragedy by focusing on ideas of home, interconnectedness, and what it means to be an American. Dèja, who has never heard about 9/11, is filled with questions, especially after her father grows inexplicably angry over her lessons. Rhodes excels at shining a meaningful, if teacherly, light on tragedy as she did for Hurricane Katrina in Ninth Ward (2010) and instructors and librarians will appreciate her sensitive but candid approach to the September 11 attacks, as well as her diverse cast of characters.--Smith, Julia Copyright 2016 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
IN CHILDREN'S LITERATURE, current events become past events at a ruthless pace. Today's preteens weren't even alive in 2001; for them the 9/11 attacks live in the same mental hinterland as, say, D-Day. Of course, that doesn't mean these kids aren't living in a world indelibly marked by what happened that day. With the 15th anniversary coming up, the latest crop of children's books on the topic are less about processing a tragedy than about finding new ways to introduce one. Wise, then, that two standout novels have set their events not on Sept. 11, 2001, but before and after it. Nora Raleigh Baskin's "Nine, Ten" focuses on the lives of four kids in the days leading up to the attacks. The benefits of Baskin's choice are clear: Since readers know that a tragedy is impending, there's dramatic tension in reading about these otherwise ordinary lives. When Aimee fights with her mother, who "worked in finance, for a company called Cantor Fitzgerald," a reader may feel dread for reasons Aimee can't know. Doing justice to four separate story threads in under 200 pages is a tall task, and fewer protagonists would have allowed more depth. But Baskin creates sharply defined, emotionally compelling characters in a few elegant words. Besides Aimee there's Sergio, whose fury at his deadbeat father leads to his jumping a subway turnstile and meeting a first responder as a result; Will, who lives near the future crash site of Flight 93 and has just lost his father, straddling "an invisible wall between the world out there, where his father's death wasn't ever-present, and the world in here, where it always was"; and Naheed, who comes to realize that wearing her hijab in a culture that fears Muslims is "nothing less than a unifying act of faith and bravery." Daringly, Baskin saves the events of 9/11 for the last act, effectively ending her book with its inciting event. When the attacks finally occur, Baskin leaves the characters' viewpoints to narrate the events dispassionately, starkly setting out facts of timing and numbers of dead. Doing so prevents any hint of sensationalism or manipulation, and puts the novel at a glossy remove. Though some might wonder if a calm and bloodless novel about 9/11 misses the point, its poise allows "Nine, Ten" to honor the emotional distance many kids today feel from the tragedy. In one scene of Jewell Parker Rhodes's powerful, cleareyed "Towers Falling," 10-year-old Déja huddles at a cafeteria table with her friends, secretly watching on a cellphone as people jump from a burning skyscraper. The video is 15 years old, but finally seeing the forbidden images hammers in the abstractions of a longpast tragedy. In their fifth-grade class, Miss Garcia shows a poster of Manhattan with two towers instead of one, and it takes them many minutes to realize the difference: The twin towers are "like teeth pulled." Rhodes doesn't assume her readers know the magnitude of 9/11; she walks them tenderly through it. Dèja's family recently entered a homeless shelter, which means she now attends an integrated school in Brooklyn. She feels she's lagging behind the kids in her class, like nerdy Ben and upbeat Sabeen. In Déja, Rhodes offers a believable portrayal of the kid who feels as if she's always giving the wrong answers in class, leading to sulking and outbursts. Though Miss Garcia's assignment to explore 9/11 is the central mechanism of "Towers Falling," Rhodes brings the narrative closer to Dèja's home in the tale of her father, who suffers from a mysterious ailment. He's never acknowledged that his chain of joblessness began with the attacks. It's a welcome exploration of the long-ranging costs of 9/11, even if his back story won't surprise even the youngest readers, and his sudden turn from nonverbal to hyperarticulate may ring false. Wise to the priorities of their young audience, both these novels focus on 9/11's impact on the home front. Maybe that is unnecessarily narrow, all the same: While many will conclude, like Déja, that "the terrorists hate us because we believe in freedom," I do wonder if they might have benefited from even a line or two proposing more nuanced reasons behind terrorists' anger toward the United States, or about America's subsequent involvement in wars that are still playing out. ELIOT SCHREFER is the author, most recently, of the young adult novel "Rescued."
Kirkus Review
Dja Barnes doesn't want to stand out at the integrated Brooklyn Collective Elementary, and she wishes her family could move out of the Avalon Family Residence into a home; despite her fears, Dja tackles new friendships, a new teacher, and the mystery behind her father's deep sadness.On the first day of fifth grade, the African-American girl makes fun of Mexican-American Ben's cowboy boots and Muslim Sabeen's cheery attitude, but despite her defensiveness, Dja grows to appreciate her new friends' backgrounds. The trio draws from each of their experiences to help them navigate Miss Garcia's 9/11 curriculum. Dja hates thinking about the pasther old best friend, her old neighborhood, her old homeyet the more she learns, the more she understands that this event affected her and every American. Rhodes pulls off the difficult feat of making a well-known story new. Sept. 11 is anchored in the minds of many readers, but for a new generation, it is history they learn in school, like Dja. Through her eyes the event becomes fresh, heavy, and palpable, but at times 9/11 appears to be a competing rather than complementary protagonist. The cadences of the fifth-graders flow almost like slam poetry, emphasizing their feelings and senses over drawn-out descriptions or narration.This tender retelling of tragedy is a solid vessel to help young readers understand the gravity of 9/11 and how it touches all Americans, no matter where we come from. (author's note) (Fiction. 8-12) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
