Jacobson, Sid. The 9/11 Report. Hill and Wang. New York, 2006. 115 Pages. 4Q2P
This book is a graphic adaptation summarizing the findings of The 9/11 Commission Report. It outlines the events leading up to the attacks, the key players in the attacks, the timelines on the day of, and what happened in the aftermath.
I have mixed feelings about this book. I’ll start with the positives. The pictures alone made a great story. They were exquisitely drawn, with great attention to detail. The timelines that were included that synchronized the events of the day were interesting, and helped me keep the many things that went on straight in my head. All in all, this book made it easier to understand all of the facts surrounding 9/11 without throwing in personal opinion and conspiracy theories, leaving me to form my own conclusion.
On the downside, this is just a lot of information to squeeze into a graphic novel. Some of the pages were really hard to follow because there were so many speech bubbles, and it wasn’t clear as to what order you should read them in. On top of that, some of the speech bubbles had so much writing and information in them, they were hard to read.
Everything considered, this graphic novel is definately easier to understand than anything else out there, and would make a great addition to a classroom. However, I doubt a teen would pick it up as pleasure reading unless they had a specialized interest in 9/11.
