by Alan Gratz
First published 2021
Nine-year-old Brandon accompanies his father to work at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. When two planes strike the towers, father and son find themselves trapped in a burning building as chaos erupts around them. They must find a way out of the collapsing structure while terror grips the city below. Half a world away in present-day Afghanistan, eleven-year-old Reshmina has spent her childhood surrounded by war. She dreams of a peaceful future, but when she decides to help a wounded American soldier, her choice puts her family in deadly peril. As Reshmina hides the soldier from those who would kill him, she begins to understand the complex history behind the conflict that has shaped her entire life. Two young people, separated by twenty years and thousands of miles, discover how a single day of violence connects their stories across time and geography.
Genres: american-fiction, adventure, action, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, fast-paced, suspenseful
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: World Trade Center, Afghanistan
Period: 2001, Present Day
336 pages · Hardcover · Scholastic Press
Content warnings: violence