Title: Fireboat: The Heroic Adventures of the John J. Harvey
Author: Maira Kalman
Illustrator: Maira Kalman
Publisher: Putnam
Year of Publication: 2002
Genre: Non-Fiction
Horn Book Rating: 1
Summary:
This is the story of a boat who was created in 1931 as a fireboat but had no real use anymore. Until September 11 happened and they had to attach hoses to it and fight fires for four straight days.
Summary of Professional Reviews:
The author takes the fire boats history and puts it in with the context of the city while also explaining the tragedy of 9/11 to young readers. The authors writes in a way that allows the young students to be able to grasp the impact of what happened that day. The illustrations in the book are amazing. The pictures of New York City and the impact that this day had on the city are jump perfectly shown through the images of this book.
Review by Anthony Germani:
While reading this book the first thing I noticed was how great the illustrations were. The illustrations tell the story by themselves. They show the immensity of what happened on 9/11 and how that day changed our country for the rest of our lives. The author also puts this horrible act into a way that young readers can read and understand. They story of the boat takes away from the horrific thing that happened that day and provides students with knowledge of what happened that day.
This book would be useful when teaching:
I would use this book when teaching about American history. This book would provide me with a great resource to use to introduce the topic of 9/11. This book gives me an excellent resource to use to teach the students about 9/11 and not have such a negative connotation to it. I can use this book to teach about 9/11 while also showing them the hard work of everyone that helped out. The story of the boat will take away the sadness of what happened that day.