Towers Falling by Jewel Parker Rhodes

I have to admit that I wasn't sure if I was ready to read a book about 9/11 15 years after it happened. Which is why I decided to read Towers Falling - a novel that takes place 15 years after 9/11.

It's 2016 and ten year-old African Jamaican American Dèja Barnes has a lot on her plate at the moment.  Her family is living in one room without a window in a homeless shelter.  Her father is sick, both physically and emotionally, but she doesn't know what's actually wrong with him.  Her mother works all day and more if she can, while Dèja takes care of her younger brother Ray and sister Leda.  On top of that, she is starting fifth grade at a new school - Brooklyn Collective Elementary.

But to her surprise, Dèja likes her new school and her new teacher, Miss Garcia.  She even makes two friends - Mexican American Ben, an artistic boy who has just moved from Arizona after his parent's divorce, and the very friendly, seemingly always happy Sabeen, a proud Muslim Turkish American.

The fifth grade curriculum for the year is focused on the past and how it connects to the present and future.  After exploring ways in which people connect to each other, the students go on to learn about how events do, too, particularly one event, one that Dèja knows nothing about - September 11, 2001.  One day, during a study get together at Ben's house, he shows Dèja a video of that day and what happened.   Dèja has never wanted to think about the past when her life was better and her family was happy, and now, she doesn't want to think about what she saw on that video either.  After all, it's ancient history as far as she's concerned.

Still, when she gets home and blurts out that she didn't know about the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center being hit by two planes, her father decides to take her out of Brooklyn Collective, his daughter does not need to go to the kind of school that would teach her about that terrible event. But, Dèja wonders, why would he have such a strong, emotional reaction to her learning about 9/11? Does it have something to do with her dad's being physically and emotionally sick?
Confused and curious, Dèja is determined to find out what is really going on.

In Towers Falling, Jewel Parker Rhodes approaches the events of 9/11 slowly and carefully, so the reader has time to digest Dèja's experiences just as she does.  After all, this is a character-driven coming-of-age novel and Dèja is in the driver's seat as we see her go from being completely ignorant about what happened on 9/11 to the realization that it has impacted the lives of everyone in the Barnes family every day since, as well as the lives of all Americans.  In fact, the whole novel made me think of William Faulkner's words "The past is never dead.  It's not even past."

As a character, Dèja was great.  She is spunky, angry, combative, inquisitive, friendly, and caring.  I really liked the diversity in her school and how she fit in so easily, even though her family's circumstances were so very different than her friend's Ben and Sabeen and the other students.  I also like that Rhodes shows the reader that, while their families are better off financially,  Ben and Sabeen's lives are not without problems, despite how things look on the surface.  Most importantly, as Dèja learns about how she connects to the past, she also learns what it means to be an American, connected to other Americans.

This is a sensitively and cautiously written novel about a family in crisis facing the events that precipitated that crisis.  Like so many people that were at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, Dèja's father is dealing with some serious problems - guilt, respiratory distress, and a critical case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that makes it impossible for him to move forward and help himself, and Rhodes has dealt with these issues in a very age-appropriate way.

In addition, there is no bullying, as we have almost come to expect in a novel about a kid who is different from the other kids in the new school, so that was refreshing.  But, be warned, there is some violence in the description of the 9/11 video Dèja watches that may not be appropriate for sensitive readers.

Ironically, I was teaching New York history to 10 year-olds in the Bronx on 9/11.  When we heard the news, it was hard to comprehend at first, but as the day went by, reality hit us all.  It was an unforgettable day but one that I think a lot of kids today, like Dèja, may not know about, making Towers Falling an excellent addition to what will be an important 9/11 body of work.

This book is recommended for readers age 8+
This book was an EARC received from NetGalley

You can find information about the 9/11 Memorial HERE and if you are ever in NYC, be sure to go down to Ground Zero and see it for yourself (bring tissues).

Lost in the Sun by Lisa Graff

"You can't catch what you can't see." (pg 120)

Trent Zimmerman, 12, has been consumed with guilt and anger and convinced that everyone hates him ever since the accident in February.  Now, the it's the start of the school year and he is beginning middle school,  but his guilt and anger are becoming harder to contain.

The burden Trent is carrying inside himself is the accidental death of his friend Jared Richards during an ice hockey game, when the puck that Trent sent flying hit Jared in the chest, killing him due to an unknown heart condition.  Everyone tells in to get on with his life, it was an accident, but Trent is frozen in that moment.   Former friends begin to avoid Trent, and he finds it difficult to play sports any more.  But middle school, his mom tells him, is a chance to make new friends.

And Trent does make a new friend - Fallon Little, the girl with a scar running from her left eyebrow, across the bridge of her nose and down to the right side of her mouth.  Fallon continuously makes up stories about how she got the scar as a way of fending off the true story, leaving the reader to wonder what trauma she suffered.  Trent, on the other hand, deals with his trauma by drawing his thoughts about what happened to Jared, some very disturbing, in his Book of Thoughts, as suggested by his 5th grade teacher.

But Trent is also acting out, doing his best to offend everyone around him, except his mother and older brother Aaron.  He refuses to participate in PE after freezing on the basketball court the first day.  And goes out of his way to be rude and disrespectful to his home room teacher, Ms. Emerson, or as he refers to her - the wrinkled old crone.  And when he and his brothers meet their dad and his new, pregnant wife for dinner three times a weeks, he goes out of his way to provoke his father.

Trent loves baseball, and when Fallon invites him over to her house to watch Field of Dreams, he tells his dad he has joined the school's Movie Club that just happens to meet the three days he sees his father for dinner.  But slowly, as Fallon and Trent watch more movies together, he finds himself enjoying being with her and her enthusiasm for things.

Despite his anger and his acting out, Trent manages to coast along with a B- average.  But when he loses Fallon's trust and is later told that he may fail PE and is given suggestions of ways to pull himself out of that, it opens the way for a real possibility for healing for him.

But will Trent allow himself to be gently and slowly led out of his paralysis with the help of Fallon and Ms Emerson?

I had a little trouble getting into this book, but then realized I was totally hooked.  The story is narrated by Trent who has a compelling middle grade voice and ways of expressing himself.  It was also interesting to see how he interrupted other people's behavior around him and its impact on his own behavior.  Whether the reader thinks he was always right in the way he read other people or that he was misinterpreting them isn't the point, even though it is clear sometimes.  The point is to see Trent's thought processes as he deals with his trauma.

Which makes seeing how he and Fallon, both traumatized kids, were able to help each other, not by talking about what happened to them, but by just being there as a friend.  But for me the most compelling thing about the story was how the adults around Trent really believed what happened to Jared was an accident and that Trent should just move on with his life.  They didn't seem to realize that a 12 year old even accidentally killing a friend needs to be addressed, Trent is clearly suffering from PTSD and no one seems to realize it.

Don't get me wrong, though.  Trent's mother is supportive, so is his older brother, but Trent is also in for a big surprise regarding his younger, annoying brother Doug.  His dad was also annoying.  He tried to keep a relationship going with his three sons, but meeting at a diner mid-way between their homes three nights a week really didn't cut it, even though they did get to stay with him and his wife occasionally.

This is a great novel full of realistically flawed people who definitely have something to tell the reader about family, forgiveness, and friendship.

This book is recommended for ages 9+
This book was borrowed from a friend

Marvelous Middle Grade Monday is a weekly event hosted by Shannon Messenger at Book Ramblings, and Plenty of Shenanigans

The Way to Stay in Destiny by Augusta Scattergood

Fans of Glory Be will enjoy meeting Theolonius Monk Thomas, 12, a boy who only wants is to stay in Destiny, play the piano and have a place to call home again.  Unfortunately, his Uncle Raymond seems to have other ideas about all this.

It's May 1974 and Theo has already had enough loss in his life.  His parents were killed in a car crash when he was a baby, and now he has lost his beloved grandfather and his grandmother must go live in a nursing home.  His Uncle Raymond arrives from his isolated cabin in Alaska as Theo's next of kin guardian.  Uncle Raymond is a Vietnam Vet who resents Theo's parents for their anti-war protests and who has some pretty tough PTSD going on.  First thing he does is whisk Theo away from everything he knows for a job in Destiny, Florida.

There are two things Theo loves - baseball and playing the piano.  No sooner does he arrive at the Rest Easy Rooming House run by former Radio City Rockette Miss Sister Grandersole, but he hears the sounds of a beautiful piano somewhere in the house and determines to find it.  Turns out, Miss Sister gives dancing lessons in a studio in the Rest Easy and she is bowled over by Theo piano playing.

And, as luck would have it, the first kid he meets is Anabel Johnson, daughter of the mayor and a girl who really knows her way around Destiny and who also loves baseball.  In fact, she loves baseball more than the tap dancing classes she is supposed to be taking with Miss Sister and never shows up for.

With the end of the school year nearing, Theo and Anabel decide to work on a class project to celebrate Destiny Day and the 100th anniversary of its founding.  Focusing on baseball, they are convinced the some pretty famous baseball players, including Hank Arron of the Milwaukee Braves, had lived in the Rest Easy during spring training.

But just as happily as Theo settles into his new life in Destiny at the Rest Easy, quickly endearing himself to Miss Sister, and in school, Uncle Raymond is already looking for another job away from there.  And he has forbidden Theo to play the piano because of bad music memories during war protests by Theo's parents.  Not only does Theo want to stay in Destiny, but he is supposed to play for Miss Sister's Destiny Day tap recital, and present the baseball project with Anabel.   To make matters worse, he is accused of stealing the money collected to buy Miss Sister a gift for her work on the recital.  Could things get worse?  Yes, they can, especially when Theo discovers who the real thief is.

The Way to Stay in Destiny is a beguiling coming of age story, narrated in the first person by Theo.  Theo is a very likable, chatty kid, though you can certainly feel his vulnerability in some of what he says, especially when he talks about things working out better than you, as a reader, know they will.  His hope that Uncle Raymond will suddenly change is pretty hard to read about, since his uncle is so closed off from the world.

Uncle Raymond's anger at the world for the way returning Vietnam Vets were treated is so sadly, so terribly understandable.  Just as Scattergood describes, they were spit on, cursed at, called names like baby killer even after experiencing on of the ugliest wars this country has been in.  His anger may be justified, even expectable, but what is really noticeable is the lack of help available at that time for vets with this level of PTSD.  If it were there, surely someone would have mentioned it.  Uncle Raymond has not real interest in Theo and feels no guilt when he disappears for period of time.

Luckily, Uncle Raymond in counterbalanced by Miss Sister, who sees the world through some very lightly-tinted rose colored glasses.  She immediately recognizes that Theo's ability to play the piano by ear is a very special musical gift and begins to teach him to read music, encouraging him to play her piano whenever he wants.  And she is the one who introduces him to his namesake - the famous jazz pianist Thelonious Monk.

The Way to Stay in Destiny is about family, friendship, loss and determination, and populated with wonderfully quirky, somewhat flawed characters who, because they are not perfect, make it that much easier to relate to them.

This book is recommended for readers age 9+
This book is an ARC sent to me by the publisher, Scholastic Press