Broaching 9-11 with the kids...

With the 10th anniversary of 9-11 quickly approaching, I've found myself pondering how much to address when talking to my kids about this.  Since we are 'out west' and given that we don't have the evening news on, there hasn't been a whole lot of exposure that my children have naturally had.   If my children were any younger, I'm not sure if I would address it with them at all, unless they somehow brought it up and asked about it, but with Xander reading everything in sight, I felt it time to talk about it.   And with living in a house full of football fanatics (he's trained them early), it will inevitably be mentioned during the NFL's first set of Sunday games...

So I thought I would share some of the resources I've found.  For my boys, given their age and personalities, we aren't delving too deep into this just yet.  But our family liked these books and I found them to be helpful in addressing 9-11. 

Fireboat: The Heroic Adventures of the John J. Harvey ~ I stumbled on this quite by accident and made a mental note to check it out when we got to September.  It is a true story about how an old fireboat was brought out of retirement and played a crucial role in helping during the aftermath of 9-11.  For my boys instead of talking much about terrorists or the planes, I wanted the focus to be on the brave response of others to this tragedy.

New York's Bravest ~ In keeping with talking about how brave the rescuers were, I found this book to be a captivating tale of bravery that characterizes the fire fighters in 19th century New York City.

The Man Who Walked Between the Towers ~ This was another captivating tale.  The boys have asked for this again and again.  The illustrations are breathtaking and really give a feel for how tall the towers were.  There is only a subtle mention at the end of the book that the towers are no longer there, but the good memories will live on...

I could not find this at any of our libraries, but this book looks quite interesting too.

The Little Chapel that Stood- I might try and locate this in another year or two as the kids get older.

Other resources that might be helpful, especially if you have older children or children asking more questions include:

September 11th Lapbook pack ~ This is available for download for only $1.99 and might be of interest to those wanting to do more.

9/11 and the War on Terror DVD for kids put out by Learn Our History.  It looks great and something I might look into when my children are older.


After reading the books we had, the boys were enthralled with the idea of walking a wire.  So we went outside and measured the distance between the towers and pretended to walk the wire between them...  They then pulled out their fire hats and pretended to rescue people while I prepared lunch for the day.

I'd love to hear how you all are addressing this with your children...