Tuesday, September 11, 2018

NINE / ELEVEN


This Day in History

Any day before a reader was born is history.


If you write stories for children, (which, to me, means young readers/listeners up to the age of fourteen) September the eleventh two-thousand and one is history.


There are already some good Kidlit books that either tell of that day, or have it in the background of a story. I wrote one such, and my agent wondered if it was too soon. Less than six months later, a whole slew of children’s books came out telling of that day. It was not too soon.



It was a seismic shock for the United States, one whose reverberations are operational today. We fear depicting the religion in whose name the perverted individuals chose to act, because many innocent adherents should not be implicated. But if we tippy-toe around that, we can’t tell the story of that day honestly.


And if we tell it honestly, how do we tell it to a child?


For my grandparents’ generation, there was another day that lived in infamy. It was the day where Pearl Harbor, where most of the United States navy was docked, another nation whom we did not provoke chose to decimate the American fleet in a few hours.  Listen to the then president of the United States speaking to the nation here. Franklin Roosevelt said it clearly: December seventh nineteen-forty-one, a date that shall live in infamy.


The country of Japan is an ally now, after we defeated it. Few kids know that date. But it would not be farfetched to say that the events of that day are still reverberating in all we think, feel and do today.


I don’t know what we should do about nine-eleven, except that I am sure we should write about it, and tell young readers what happened. Best to do it with riveting stories, preferably engrossing fiction where imagined characters live through real events, because these are the stories kids read out of school.


Someday, through the haze of the passing time, we will not fear naming the perpetrators. We’ll be breaking bread with their grandchildren, and together we’ll confront new challenges.



But for now, today, nine eleven is still a date that lives in infamy.



6 comments:

Vijaya said...

Good post. I loved The Man Who Walked Between Two Towers. That last spread brings tears.

Evelyn said...

Well said, Mirka.

Tina Cho said...

What a powerful post, Mirka. Clever to compare 9-11 with Pearl Harbor. I'd love to see your manuscript on 9-11. Maybe it can still get published. ?? I haven't seen any books on 9-11 yet.

Mirka Breen said...

Here's a link to one of many incomplete lists of books (both PB and MG) about that day:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/kids/we-remember-eight-childrens-books-about-september-11th/

And they keep growing.

Kelly Hashway said...

I remember the day all too well. I was teaching, and my students were so scared. My heart broke for the entire country that day.

Barbara Etlin said...

I critiqued a brilliant manuscript with this as background (YA novel) in 2007; the novel was rejected eventually ("too soon"). I hope one day it is published.

I think it's important not to ignore history's darker side when writing for kids. You can put it into context. Otherwise, kids will get an incomplete or distorted picture. Misinformed people, as adults, can make bad decisions.

I'm writing an historical novel and I hope that an Author's Note will help to put touchy subjects into context.