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Nine, Ten: A September 11 Story

Where were you on September 11th? What's your story? This year marks the fifteenth anniversary of the day that changed our world forever and the students I spend my days with, weren't even alive. 

 While reading & booktalking Somewhere Among, a novel in verse by Annie Donwerth-Chikamatsu that was set in 2001, my sixth graders began asking me questions about my 9/11 story. Where were you? What did you think? Were you scared? This conversation is not an easy one to have, but it's necessary. Reading stories always makes these difficult conversations easier to have. Nine, Ten: A September 11 Story by Nora Raleigh Baskin is a perfect book to help those conversations. 


In Nine, Ten: A September 11 Story, we meet four kids from around the country 48 hours before the attacks. We get to know them. We learn who they are. Baskin masterfully brings the reader back to "before" with ease. Each of these kids is dealing with life, as they know it, before it all changes. And then it changes...and we travel with these characters as they deal with the attacks. 

 I love this book. When it arrived, I ripped the box and devoured the book. It's one of those books I couldn't stop reading! (Sometimes I was even holding my breath because I wanted to know what was going to happen next!!!) I don't know how Nora Raleigh Baskin gets the reader to care so much about these four different characters so much, so quickly, but she does. 

 This book will definitely be shared with my sixth graders in the upcoming school year...and for years to come! I can't wait to share this with my students and start the conversation!
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  1. Beverley BairdJune 29, 2016 at 1:04 PM

    Sounds like a must read book. I must get it. Thanks for the recommendation. And yes, books certainly help us share tough subjects.

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