Among the Heroes

May 15, 2002
New York Times reporter Longman, who covered the story of Flight 93, helps us relive the heroism and the terror of its final moments.

Copyright 2002 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2003
Adult/High School-Two different yet effective treatments. The quality of the writing and the book's scope make Blue perhaps the best of the 9/11 anniversary volumes. Bernstein focuses on the World Trade Center attacks without slighting the disasters at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania. His comprehensive view makes the connection between the Islamic fundamentalist hijackers in Pakistan in 1979 and enrollees in Florida flight schools in 2000 and 2001. Firsthand accounts of survivors' escapes from the WTC along with the self-sacrificing courage of others they witnessed mix with sketches of extraordinary lives violently cut short. Such sketches also fill Heroes, a virtual obituary/memorial to the 40 people who died attempting to thwart the actions of four hijackers. Eerily, Longman tells how some passengers opted for the flight at the last minute. His hundreds of interviews allow for both fact and speculation regarding the plane's eventual disintegration into a Pennsylvania field. Both books include photographs of the tragedies and the people involved, relate the last conversations of victims via cell or air phones, and are graphic in parts, all of which make them difficult to get through-but that's precisely why they should be read.-Dori DeSpain, Fairfax County Public Library, VA

Copyright 2003 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.