It's Monday!

           Every Monday, it's a pleasure to link up with a group that reviews books they want to share with others. If you visit, you'll be sure to find a book or more that you know you'll want to read! 
          Visit Jen at Teach MentorTexts and Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders to see what they've been reading, along with everyone else who link up.   Tweet #IMWAYR

           This week I'm reading some older books that I have put off (except for this first one, not out yet). No reason, but they just kept getting moved to the bottom of the piles. 

The Memory of Things - Gae Polisner

        Young teens today don’t remember the day of 9/11. Older teens might remember people crying and watching television constantly. If you’re eighteen and graduating from high school, you were three when “it” happened.  This story immediately starts the reader wondering how 16-year-old Kyle Donohue is going to get himself out of a situation he never, ever imagined. Unfortunately he cannot, but in the days that follow, Kyle discovers more about himself, throwing doubts away, finding the strength he did not know he had. On 9/11, his school is dismissed after watching the first tower fall, and those who needed to get to Brooklyn were led to the Brooklyn Bridge, left to cross by themselves and go home.

          On the bridge, Kyle finds a girl covered in ash, crouched down and wearing a pair of wings. He sees she is in trouble, acting as if she might jump, and takes her home. His mother and younger sister are stranded in California and his father, a New York City policeman, is at the disaster. The next week Kyle is in charge, a first time to make decisions on his own. Although he questions himself often, this caring young boy does the right thing, and learns that what others have questioned about him is wrong, that he is the boy he wants to be.  Kyle’s favorite uncle who lives with them is wheelchair bound from a recent and terrible accident, and his caregiver didn’t make it that day. Kyle can’t get a call through to anyone at first, so the choices are up to him. He must care for the uncle, and must decide about the girl.        

           Gae Polisner’s story takes us through the first moments, the very real events and feelings that happen, but allows Kyle to be the main part of the story, interspersed with the girl’s story, told in poetry. This girl doesn’t remember anything, even her name, and Kyle’s doubts of how to help her feel safe show his inner turmoil, but the instinct to do good, too.