The Man Who Walked Between the Towers

The Man Who Walked Between the Towers
Mordicai Gerstein
Caldecott Medal Winner 2004

This book is a true account of Philippe Petit’s tightrope walk on a hire wire between the World Trade Center Towers in New York on August 7, 1974.

There are many reasons why I liked this book: it’s a true story about French aerialist Philippe Petit; it has wonderful illustrations that give the reader breathtaking views of what the aerialist sees from a high wire stretched between the twin towers; and it effectively mentions the now nonexistence of the twin towers.

My reaction to this book was greatly influenced by both my own child and my 4th and 5th grade library patrons. Even though my own son and my library patrons were six and seven years old when the destruction of the twin towers occurred, a majority of them saw the replays on television and still remember it and ask to check out books about it. This book is a much better alternative to the ones in my current collection - terrorist books with graphic pictures of the twin tower's destruction.

Mordicai Gerstein’s illustrations for this book are similar to ones in his other books: Sparrow Jack and The Wild Boy.

The one new thing I learned from this book is that children’s literature does not have to be confined to just the usual style of a book. This author used foldout pages to extend his illustrations and to give awe-inspiring majestic pictures of the views seen from both looking down from the wire and looking up from the ground.