Alan Gratz's Ground Zero (2021) is a young-adult historical novel about an American boy who escapes the World Trade Center during the 9/11 terrorist attacks and an Afghan girl who tries to stop her brother from joining the Taliban. The separate storylines, which take place in 2001 and 2019 respectively, are told in alternating chapters that contain many echoes and parallels.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, nine-year-old Brandon Chavez accompanies his father to the World Trade Center because he has been suspended from school. Brandon’s father, Leo, works as a manager at the restaurant on the 107th floor of the North Tower. While his father is distracted, Brandon takes the elevator down, hoping to buy Wolverine gloves from a store in the underground mall. Brandon's elevator stalls when a hijacked plane hits the building. Brandon escapes, bringing help for the others trapped in the elevator. Rather than leave the building, he walks up the emergency stairs to find his father. As the morning goes on, Brandon learns the plane has cut off access to his father, who cannot be rescued from the roof because there is too much smoke preventing helicopters from landing. After teaming up with Richard, a businessman, Brandon makes it to safety. He watches as the North Tower collapses and kills his father.
In 2019, twelve-year-old Reshmina lives in a mountainous region of Afghanistan where the Afghan National Army and American soldiers are still hunting down members of the Taliban nearly twenty years after forcing the group out of power. Reshmina practices her English with dreams of becoming something other than a housewife; she also worries about her twin brother Pasoon's inevitable radicalization. When the Taliban ambushes the ANA and Americans in Reshmina's village, her family hesitantly gives refuge to a wounded American sergeant named Taz Lowery. However, Pasoon runs into the hills to inform the Taliban, who will slaughter the entire village for their part in protecting an American. Reshmina follows her brother, whom she cannot persuade not to betray the family. Reshmina rushes back to the village, arriving just in time to get her family and Taz to safety in the ancient tunnels beneath the village. Meanwhile, the Taliban and Americans battle above ground. Taz reveals that his real name is Brandon Chavez, and he took his adoptive father Richard's surname after they survived the 9/11 attacks. Once the fighting has ended, Reshmina sees that her home and those of her neighbors have been destroyed. She criticizes Taz for bringing nothing but destruction to her country. Brandon (Taz) admits that he no longer knows why the Americans are in Afghanistan, saying that it is bad for them to stay and will be bad if they go.
Exploring themes of terrorism, revenge, resilience, hope, powerlessness, and betrayal, Ground Zero shows how the American response to September 11 has caused the loss of thousands more lives around the world. By juxtaposing the traumatizing events of 9/11 with the consequences that the attack precipitated for Afghan civilians, Gratz emphasizes the outsized impact war has on the innocent.
