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Writing 9/11 for teenagers: Sidekick and the Meg's diary blog

Abstract This article examines memories of 9/11 in two superficially very different texts marketed to adolescent readers: a blog post on author Meg Cabot's website, and a small episode in a novel, Adeline Radloff's Sidekick. Cabot recounts her own memories; the memories of Radloff's heroine, Katie, are entirely fictional. Cabot was in New York on the day, able to see the first tower burning from her flat window; Katie was in Cape Town, where her superhero boss's attempt to help the victims failed because of his inability to get to New York. Cabot is an adult recounting adult memories; Katie is seventeen in the novel, and was a child in 2001. In examining these two different representations of 9/11 – “real” and fictional, geographically near and geographically distant, adult and child/adolescent – the article explores issues of agency, power and hope, and suggests that there are significant similarities between the texts because there are significant similarities between their treatments of these issues. It concludes that power is central in both narratives; that both narratives portray knowledge of power as concomitant with reminders of powerlessness; and that geography profoundly affects questions of power and questions of character in both narratives.