Ground Zero Summary
Alan Gratz

Ground Zero Overview

Part coming-of-age narrative, part historical fiction, Alan Gratz's Ground Zero (2021), published to coincide with the twentieth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, juxtaposes the stories of two children, one an American and the other an Afghan, each dealing with the implications of war. In one story, nine-year-old Brandon Chavez is trapped in the North Tower of the World Trade Center complex the morning of the attacks and struggles to escape the doomed building. In the other, set in 2019, an 11-year-old Afghan girl, Reshmina, must watch as her impoverished mountain village, caught up in the bloody conflict between rouge Taliban guerilla fighters and the Afghan National Army supported by the American military force, is razed by an American air attack designed to root out the Taliban. Although marketed as Young Adult fiction, the book treats very adult themes, including the psychology of revenge, the virtue of resilience, the wonderland logic of America’s long occupation of Afghanistan, the importance of family in the face of death, and supremely the need for community during catastrophe.