Nonfiction Book Blog #2

Title: "The Man Who Walked Between The Towers"
Written and Illustrated By: Mordicai Gerstein 
Publisher: Mcmillan Publishers, Lerner Publishing Group
Copyright:  2003
Genre: Nonfiction
Number of Pages: 44

 

     "The Man Who Walked Between The Towers" is an exciting and nail-biting story of a guy who riskily and illegally walked a wire between the twin towers. There was a man who loved to put on shows for people by doing all kinds of tricks like juggling sticks of fire on a unicycle and acting across tight ropes. One day when he saw the twin towers, and had the desire to stretch a rope between them to walk across. Since this was illegal, he had to find a way to do it secretly and he did. This man found a way to make his dream happen and was able to walk out and do tricks on the wire way up between two tall towers. Although he was arrested after coming off the wire, he was not put in jail. Read the book to find out how he managed to get a wire all the way up to the top of two towers without being noticed!
     Illustrations in "The Man Who Walked Between The Towers" are very detailed and appear to be more like pencil drawn and painted with water color. At the beginning of the book, it feels as though I am about to look through an old cartoon history book. I loved seeing how it portrayed the twin towers, and the man looking at them as something to conquer. There are great depictions of what is happening as this man is about to walk across the sky and what he went through to get there.

    Grade: 6th
    Content Area: Social Studies
    Standard: 12 ) Evaluate significant political issues and policies of presidential administrations      
                              since World War II.
                       •  Explaining how conflict in the Middle East impacted life in the United States since
                             World War II.

   When history is being taught in the classroom, this could be an interesting book to read to the class to add a little fun fact to the story of the twin towers. Since the twin towers are mostly talked about on September 11, the teacher could explain the event but then also pull out this book to give information about something else that took place at the towers. Once the teacher got to the part where the book talks about the man walking across and people noticing him, she could also stop and ask the students to write down a prediction of what they think will happen. Will he make back across the rope? Will he go to jail? Will he get caught in a storm and require help getting off safely? This book could be used in more than one way and is a fun filled story of something that took place in America's history.