The Man Who Walked Between the Towers

The Man Who Walked Between the Towers by Mordicai Gerstein
2004 Caldecott Medal

I love this book. First of all, I'm partial to street performers and circus arts and this story features Phillipe Petit, the french tight rope walker,  and his famed high wire walk between the towers of the World Trade Center in 1974.

I think I had heard of this man on a tight rope between sky scrapers in NYC, but to hear the details of it was SO much better than this single image of a man walking a wire.

First of all the towers were 1/4 mile high. The tallest buildings in New York City.
Second of all he didn't just walk between the towers. He was out there for almost an hour, walking dancing, running, and even kneeling in a salute. He even lay down to rest.
Finally, it was completely against the law and when he came off the wire he held out his hands for handcuffs, but this was only after the police had been shouting at him for an hour!

The towers were not quite complete when he did this. He dressed up as a construction worker and some how got a 440 pound reel of cable to the top floor, carrying it up the last 180 stairs to the roof. Other friends were on the other tower. They tied a thin strong line to an arrow and shot it across to Philippe, 140 feet away. They worked all night to secure the cable.

The pictures include two fold out pages giving the feel of how NYC must look from 1/4 mile up--- for Phillipe, "happy and absolutely free"; and what Philippe must have looked like from the street--- "It was astonishing. It was terrifying and beautiful. A quarter mile up in the sky someone was dancing."

I love this part:
"Officers rushed to the roofs of the towers. 'You're under arrest!' they shouted through bullhorns. Phillipe turned and walked the other way. Who would come and get him?"

You'll be glad to know that when the case came to court he was sentenced to perform in the park for the children of the city!

OK, so this would be a GREAT story under any circumstances. But this book was written in 2004 after 9/11 and the towers he walked between are already gone. The poignancy of this gives the story a deeper context that makes it a very memorable story, and kicks it into my "favorites" category!