Impact: The Story of the September 11 Terrorist Attacks

September 11, 2001, began as a picturesque late summer day. The sky was blue and sunny, without a cloud in sight. Very quickly, that beautiful morning turned into one of the darkest days in America. Terrorists hijacked four airplanes. In New York, two planes hit the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center within minutes of each other. A third collided with the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. After a passenger revolt, the fourth plane crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, en route to Washington, D.C. In total, thousands died. This event would become known as 9/11: the deadliest terrorist attack in American history. 

Impact: The Story of the September 11 Terrorist Attacks reconstructs the morning of September 11 through firsthand accounts from people who experienced the attacks. An entry in Capstone Press’s Tangled History series, which explores primarily American tragedies, the book follows events from 7:40 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Its short, chronological chapters shift among the perspectives of witnesses, survivors, and victims, allowing the reader to experience the morning through the people caught in it. Each chapter opens with a photograph depicting upsetting scenes, such as the Twin Towers on fire, the aftermath of the Flight 93 and Pentagon crashes, and the remains of Ground Zero. However, the photographs are no more graphic than those featured in school textbooks. These include images of the towers on fire, the second plane approaching the South Tower, the impact crater and remains of Flight 93, the towers’ collapse, and the aftermath of said collapse. No images of bodies or those who jumped or fell from the towers are featured. 

Every account in Impact: The Story of the September 11 Terrorist Attacks is powerful and insightful. A few stories stand out, such as that of survivor Jan Demczur, a window washer who became trapped in an elevator with five others in the North Tower after the first plane’s impact. They used his squeegee to break through the drywall, eventually escaping through a bathroom on the 50th floor. There’s also the story of Mark Bingham, a passenger aboard Flight 93 who was among those who attempted to regain control of the plane from the terrorists. Though Bingham and the other passengers involved did not survive the ensuing crash, their efforts undeniably saved countless lives in D.C. Another notable story is that of Jay Jonas, an FDNY firefighter who, along with his men and a woman they had rescued, survived when the North Tower collapsed on top of them. 

Because Impact: The Story of the September 11 Terrorist Attacks covers mature and disturbing subject matter, it is not recommended for younger or otherwise sensitive readers. While the text is simplified and easy to understand, the book does not shy away from the gravity of what people experienced on 9/11, including being trapped in the buildings, what first responders saw and dealt with, and the deaths of thousands of victims. As such, Impact is best suited for readers ages 10 to 14, particularly older readers ready to learn about a difficult chapter in American history. 

In total, Impact: The Story of the September 11 Terrorist Attacks is an incredibly effective work of narrative nonfiction. It successfully puts readers into the shoes of those directly affected by the attacks on 9/11. It provides a human side to that day that younger readers first learning about the attacks may not otherwise encounter. Its use of firsthand accounts and carefully selected photographs makes Impact: The Story of the September 11 Terrorist Attacks an accessible introduction to the events of September 11, 2001. For young readers to grapple with this history, the book offers something textbooks often can’t: a visceral sense of what ordinary people endured and the courage many showed in the face of tragedy. It’s a valuable read for anyone looking to understand not just what happened on 9/11, but what it felt like to live through it. 

Sexual Content 

• None

Violence 

• Nicole Simpson feels the South Tower shake from her office on the 73rd floor. Her co-workers wonder if it’s another bomb: “Everyone who worked in the World Trade Center knew that terrorists had bombed the building before.” Looking out the window, Simpson sees “paper everywhere” floating down to the street, noting that the paper “was on fire.” 

• The chapter “In a Flash” opens with an unnamed woman at her desk on the 93rd floor of the North Tower: “Her last moments were filled with terror. An airplane. An explosion. A scream cut short.” Another unnamed woman cries as “thick black smoke” fills her office. She opens a window to escape the flames, but “Within minutes, it’s unbearable. She’s roasting alive. Trapped.” With no other choice, she “throws the window open the rest of the way. She jumps” to her death. 

• Firefighter Jay Jonas, captain of Ladder Company 6, responds to the scene with Matt Komorowski and Tommy Falco. Jonas hears a woman scream while “pointing up at one of the high floors where the flames were an inferno.” He then sees “the shape of a body falling from the tower.” Komorowski says, “Someone just jumped!” and “They’re jumping out of the windows! Oh no, no!” Jonas recalls, “It was horrifying.” 

• People watch the North Tower burn on television, “smoke oozing from an open gash in the side of the building.” Suddenly, “countless millions gasped as they watched a dark shape race across the screen. . . it was another airplane. And it had just rammed straight into the other tower.” An accompanying photograph shows the second plane approaching the South Tower as the North Tower burns. 

• Upon entering the North Tower’s lobby, Jay Jonas found it to be “in chaos. Two badly burned men lay on the floor near the main doors.” 

• Mark Bingham watches in horror as Flight 93 is hijacked. One hijacker “grasped a sharp blade. It looked like a box cutter.” During the hijacking, Bingham witnessed, “Passengers screaming. Someone shouting there was a bomb on the airplane. A flight attendant brutally stabbed.” As Bingham and the other passengers are ordered to the back of the plane, he considers overpowering the hijackers but fears for his life: “The hijackers had already attacked at least one person. They wouldn’t hesitate to kill him.” 

• At 9:37 a.m., Karen Baker and her friend Elaine Kannellis are working inside the Pentagon. “Then the ground shook. A loud, grinding thud rang through the halls. In the distance, a voice shouted, ‘It’s a bomb!’”  

• Onboard Flight 93, Mark Bingham, Todd Beamer, and other passengers learn that their plane is headed toward a target via phone calls to the ground and decide to fight back. They plan to “storm the terrorists using the only weapon they could get—scalding hot water.” Beamer tells an operator, “We’ve got hijackers with knives. One seems to have a bomb. I don’t know where the pilot or copilot are. They may be dead or wounded.” 

• After setting down the phone, Beamer, Bingham, and Tom Burnett prepare to confront the hijackers. “Bingham was prepared to do whatever it took to make sure those hijackers failed, even if it meant driving the plane into the ground.” Beamer then “stood and led the charge. ‘Let’s roll.’” 

• The chapter “No Words” describes the crash of Flight 93: “At more than 500 miles an hour, Flight 93 raced like a bullet toward the ground. . . A mushroom-shaped cloud of smoke rose above the trees.” The plane “slammed into the ground with terrible force,” leaving “a scarred, burning crater” in the Pennsylvania countryside. None of the forty people aboard survived. A photograph shows the impact crater and wreckage, with the caption noting, “The impact of Flight 93 left a surprisingly small crater. Rescuers couldn’t believe an airplane had crashed there.” 

• Jay Jonas and his men are helping Josephine Harris evacuate the North Tower when they hear a “low rumble” and feel the “walls and the floor” hum as the building begins to collapse. “They could feel each and every floor collapse. They had seconds—only seconds—until that wave reached the fourth floor and smashed them to a pulp.” Jonas “closed his eyes and thought of his family as he waited for the weight of the North Tower to crush them all.” They all survived the collapse. 

Drugs and Alcohol 

• None 

Language 

• None 

Supernatural Content 

• None 

Spiritual Content 

• When Nicole Simpson felt the building shake after the plane hit the South Tower, she wondered: “Oh, God. Now what?” 

• Rick Leventhal, a Fox News reporter, witnessed the South Tower’s collapse while covering the event on the ground. His engineer, Pat Butler, whispered, “My God. The whole thing, just. . . gone. How many people were still inside?” 

by Nicholas Paragano