The Man Who Walked Between the Towers

Gerstein, Mordicai. The Man Who Walked Between the Towers. Macmillan, 2003. 40 pages.

The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, written and illustrated by Mordicai Gerstein, was a powerful story that highlighted the popularity of the World Trade Center. Before Phillipe Petit walked across the twin towers on a tight rope, nobody was interested in the building. They thought that the design was ugly and they didn’t know why they were putting it in the middle of New York. As Phillipe was walking across the tight rope, he generated a lot of buzz about the building among the people that were watching.

The perspective that the images were drawn in is unbelievable. You can really tell how high Phillipe is because you can see the roundness of earth and where it drops off. Also if you pay attention to how many words are on a page, they usually fill the page except for when they say that the towers are gone. On that page that’s all that’s said.

When children have this book read to them they might think about questions like, “How did the man not fall?” and “What does it mean when it says the towers are gone?” or even “What happened to the towers?”. People that experienced the towers falling on 9/11 would know the answer to the last two questions, but a child hearing about it for the first time wouldn’t. People, mainly parents are teachers, have been arguing on if this book is the right way to introduce the terrors of 9/11 or if they should read it to them after they have learned about it. To most people, its a personal opinion on how they want to approach it.

Now the towers are gone