Thursday, September 11, 2014

September Roses - Jeanette Winter

Illustrated by the author
2004 Farrar, Strauss, Giroux
HC/ $14.00
32 pages )book is small: perhaps 5" x 6")
Goodreads rating: 3.87
My rating: 4/I like it more with each reading
Endpapers:The rose motif she's used throughout the book, in black on white
Title Page: a 2 x 2 inch square painted with the motif roses in color
Prologue:  "At 8:50 am September 11, 2001, I looked up from my drawing table and saw in the distance an enormous plume of smoke rising high above and beyond the Empire State Building.  I soon learned that the smoke covering the city came from the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
          After a few days, I went to Union Square - to be closer to the communal outpouring of anguish in the city.  I saw the roses, and learned how thy came to be there.  Relying on memory and imagination, I wrote and illustrated September Roses the following spring."
1st line:  "Far away in South Africa, he said, across the ocean, over mountains, beyond the desert, two sisters lived together and grew roses." (Spread over three pages with four illustrations)


My comments:  This is a lovely book that memorializes this terrible occurrence with a connected story.  I now use it in my classroom each year, but fourth graders now, 13 years later, don't yet know much about this day.  So I have to talk to them about what happened before I share the book  I keep it simple.  After reading the book we talk about gratitude.  Nine year olds have enough time in the future to talk about the nitty gritties of the day as well as the repurcussions, but I've found this gentle, simple book is a really nice way to talk about this day with my kids.
I wrote a review last year, BEFORE sharing the book with my class.  It's a bit different.....Read it here.

(I wrote this last year):  This is a simple book, based on a true story that took place on 9/11. I'm going to share it in school with the kids today - kids that were born three years after that fateful day. It's been 12 years. It was a day that not only affected American greatly, but changed the way that we live and think each and every day. That said, the book itself doesn't flow smoothly enough for me. The words and illustrations are wonderful, but seem somewhat disjointed..... I'll see what my fourth graders think.

Goodreads: A tribute to the memory of September 11
          On September 11, 2001, two sisters from South Africa are flying to New York City with 2,400 roses to be displayed at a flower show. As their plane approaches the airport, a cloud of black smoke billows over the Manhattan skyline. When they land, they learn of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. All flights are canceled; the sisters cannot go home, and they are stranded with boxes and boxes of roses.
          In the days that followed September 11, Jeanette Winter was drawn to Union Square and saw, among the hundreds of memorial offerings, twin towers made of roses. In the pages of this small and vibrant book, she tells a moving story.

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