Author & Illustrator: Mordicai Gerstein
Category: Caldecott Medal Award Book
I had no idea what this book was about. To be honest, from the cover I could not guess and actually thought that the book might be rather dull. However, it was the only Caldecott Medal book left at the Public Library last Friday when I went to stock up, so I checked it out. I opened it this afternoon to take a look and found a preview on the inside left cover. The Man Who Walked Between the Towers was about the twin towers, the World Trade Center towers. I couldn’t believe it. In the summer of 1974, a few months before I was born, the towers that defined New York City’s skyline for decades were just being erected. A young French street performer named Philippe Petit got an idea for the ultimate “high wire” act. Knowing that no officials would grant him permission to attempt this feat, he secretly entered one of the towers and with the help of friends, spread a cable between the two. I had never heard of this guy or this event, but the story immediately drew me in. The story is told in simple phrases, almost poetic. The illustrations are gorgeous ink and oil depictions of Philippe’s historic performance a quarter of a mile high between the twin towers. There are two fold-out pages, one that features Philippe on the wire with everything beneath him looking very small, and another that features the crowd below with Philippe looking very small up in the sky. I love fold-out pages in books. It just seems that one gets a little something extra – a bonus. These bonus pages are beautiful and seem to try to capture the height of this feat from different vantage points. Halfway through the book I discovered a picture very similar to the one on the cover with these words below, “As the rising sun lit up the towers, out he stepped onto the wire.” And then it hit me what the cover of the book was trying to convey; this was the moment that Philippe placed his foot onto the wire and began his journey. Suddenly I could see the buildings below, the cars, and even the shadow of the towers. I understood that it wasn’t figurative at all. This book was about a man who literally walked between the towers. My husband and I took our seven-year old son to the Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus just a couple of weeks ago. It was a great show!!! As I read through this book, I was reminded of the high wire act at the circus. At the time, it seemed like a tremendous feat. My son was actually frightened and was worried that the performers would fall. Of course, they were secured with safety wires and had a soft landing pad below. Nonetheless, it was impressive to see the performers walk across that wire without falling. I cannot imagine how thrilling and frightening it must have been to see this young man on that thin wire, completely free of safety ropes of any kind, walking between the towers. After Philippe walked, danced, and ran on the high wire, he was arrested and sentenced to perform in the park before the children of the city – a punishment he rather enjoyed. Then the book turns to a heartbreaking spread. A page depicting a different New York City skyline is on the right and on the left is a white page with only these words, “Now the towers are gone.” It is quick, to-the-point, and painful. The book concludes by saying that the towers linger in our memories, as does that summer day when a young man walked in the air between them. The page features an illustration of “ghost” towers that appear ever so slightly behind the new skyline. I think that this is a wonderful book, not just because of the captivating illustrations that earned it the Caldecott Medal, but because of its significance in our country’s history. This book was published in 2003; two years after the towers fell. It would be an excellent addition to a history unit, to help kids reflect on the events of our past in a different way. I enjoyed the book and was pleasantly surprised by what I found inside. It may sound cliché, but this was definitely a case of “don’t judge a book by its cover”.
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