09/11/2026
I will never forget that day and the days that followed. I was pregnant with my second daughter and watched the events unfold, wondering if their father or grandmother, who had left earlier that morning to head to Reagan airport, were somehow affected. There was no cell service so no way of knowing for hours. I was trying not to let my two year old see me crying as I watched with horror as the towers burned. I was going in to work later that day and I worked with people with family members at the Pentagon. We closed the office early so everyone could get home and process and try to find out if their loved ones were safe. My children will never fully understand but we should all teach our kids about these events, what we remember, why it happened, the good and bad of the aftermath. The way we came together and supported each other and the victims was the good part. Blaming all Muslims was one of the bad parts. Here are some good resources to start the conversation. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/193WH5VWwN/?mibextid=wwXIfr
Today's A Mighty Girl Community Pick: "Towers Falling" by Jewell Parker Rhodes. When Deja Barnes, a fifth grader in Brooklyn, starts at a new school, she discovers that her class will spend the year studying one big question about home, community, and history. She is skeptical -- her family has just lost their apartment and moved into a homeless shelter, and the last thing she needs is a school assignment about home. The teacher's lessons are building toward September 11, 2001 -- a date Deja has never really understood, because she was not yet born and no one in her family will talk about it.
As the class explores it together, Deja slowly begins to understand why her father has a cough that never goes away and why he can't seem to keep a job. And with the help of her new friends Sabeen, a cheerful Muslim girl, and Ben, whose father served in the Iraq War, she begins to piece together a story that includes not just the towers falling but the years of healing that followed.
Jewell Parker Rhodes, the award-winning author of "Ninth Ward," writes with genuine tenderness for the generation of children born after 9/11, who have inherited a country shaped by an event they cannot remember. "Towers Falling" faces homelessness, PTSD, and anti-Muslim prejudice with honesty, and lands on hope, community, and the belief that understanding history can help a family, and a country, begin to heal. Highly recommended for ages 9 and up.
"Towers Falling" is available at https://bookshop.org/a/8011/9780316262217 (Bookshop) and https://amzn.to/3V6Aa2t (Amazon)
For more books to give children and teens --- who were all born after 9/11 -- a better appreciation of this day and its historical significance, you can find many reading recommendations in our blog post "We Remember" at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=34372
For tweens and teens, we recommend "Nine, Ten: A September 11 Story" for ages 9 to 12 (https://www.amightygirl.com/nine-ten), "All We Have Left" for ages 13 and up (https://www.amightygirl.com/all-we-have-left), and "Hope and Other Punchlines" for ages 14 and up (https://www.amightygirl.com/hope-and-other-punchlines)
In addition to the fictional stories featured in our blog post, we also recommend these two excellent non-fiction books on the history of 9/11: "What Were the Twin Towers?" for ages 8 to 12 (https://bookshop.org/a/8011/9780448487854) and the graphic novel "In the Shadow of the Fallen Towers" for ages 13 and up (https://bookshop.org/a/8011/9780063360983)
