Companion Texts

This book would be great for fifth graders that enjoy the I Survived series and are interested to learn more about 9/11 from another kid's perspective. In this I Survived book, Lucas sneaks into New York City to visit his favorite uncle, who is a firefighter, but just as he is about to arrive at his Fire station, the plane hits the towers and Lucas is left all alone in the big city.

If these fifth-grade students enjoy Alan Gratz's writing style of showing multiple perspectives of different disasters, I would recommend his new book, Two Degrees. In this thrilling novel, Grantz explains four children's Perspectives and how climate change is drastically affecting their daily lives.

I would recommend this book to fifth-grade readers that are still questioning how this terrorist attack affects students today.  In this chapter book, Yusuf is a Muslim student living in Texas struggling to hold onto his friendships and joy due to the anger many Americans still hold from the 9/11 terrorist attack that was almost 20 years ago. 

I would recommend this book to students that didn't like the violence and intensity of Grantz's novel but enjoyed reading about how this 9/11 attack affected children. This story takes place over multiple days at the Chicago International Airport and describes how this event impacted four middle schoolers' lives.