Four powerful 9/11 novels for young readers

At the Christian Science Monitor Jenny Sawyer tagged four powerful novels to help young readers come to terms with 9/11, including:

The Memory of Things by Gae Polisner (Ages 14+)

Teenager Kyle Donohue is fleeing the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks when he stumbles across a terrified girl cowering in the shadows of the Brooklyn Bridge. Kyle, who doesn’t think himself brave – but proves otherwise over the course of this story, though not always in the traditional sense of the word – makes the split-second decision to bring her home with him to wait out what feels like an apocalypse.

Kyle’s own issues – with himself and with various family members – are delicately woven into the fabric of this story, setting up a thought-provoking contrast between the way life went on after the attacks, even as the city reeled and the magnitude of the tragedy left no one untouched.

Kyle is a winning protagonist whose responses to 9/11 and its effects on the people he loves feel completely believable and intensely relatable.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Page 69 Test: The Memory of Things.

--Marshal Zeringue