the man who walked between the towers.

Title: Harvesting Hope: The Man Who Walked Between The Towers

Author/Illustrator: Mordicai Gerstein

Awards: The Caldecott Award

Medium: pastel

Genre: Biography

Theme: A man who seeks/strives for something that is challenging him on a wire.

Summary: A man who walked between the towers in his early age.

Literary Elements: The book was about Philippe Petit who walked between the towers in 1974- the towers as known as the World Trade Center. He himself is from France. He danced on a wire between the steeples of Notre Dame Cathedral. He loves to walk on a wire from point A to point B. He moved to America. He saw something that would challenge him and made him a legend as no one has done this before, the World Trade Center building! He was told that he couldn't walk on a wire between the towers. Philippe has a sense of mischief and with his sense of mischief, he sneaked in and walked on a wire between the towers. The tone of the book is very lively to match the character, very light, and easy to read. the illustrations are great and very easy to read. As I have noticed that the face of Philippe does not show, only the back of his face and the side of his face. it is interesting to me. Philippe's characterization: courage, mischievous, very artistic with his skill of walking on a wire. He does not seek for any trouble just for his pleasure. In the end of the book, it shows that he performs in front of children as his punishment for walking on a wire between the towers. An interesting thing to me is that i noticed the face of judge, he seems pleased to punish him to do a community service by performing in front of children. the plot seems very flat because it doesn't show any excitement as it predicts what would happen next. for instance, when cops arrested philippe, i questioned myself, what are they arresting him for, on what charge, and etc. it was a good biography but not as great as i have read the other biography books- harvesting hope: the story of Cesar Chavez.

Evaluation: at first, i was reading a book, " My Brother Charlie" by Holly Robinson Peete and Ryan Elizabeth Peete. I thought it was a biography book as it was about authors' son/brother, respectively. It was about Charlie who has an autism. I was struggling with its book's genre. I asked Julie Mitchiner about the book. She said the book is more of a realistic book rather than a biography. I was fortunate that She let me borrow her book, " The Man Who Walked Between The Towers" by Mordical Gerstein. It was a quite interesting book. I was very skeptical about the book if it is true. I researched Philippe Petit, the man who walked between the towers. I was in awe with what he did. This book exists because of the towers doesn't exist. Biography normally talks about the death of a famous person or an incident that impact people. I probably won't allow the children to read the book because it can build their sense of mischief!