"I played," he answers. And so with each page, we see how he played in his mind every day he was trapped--how he played marbles with his friends, won the best solo part in the choir, biked through St. Marc with his little sister, and ate the sweetest mango.
Hope, love, and warmth dance across each page, reminding us that sometimes it is the simplest beauties that help us find our strength.
Niki, the real boy whom this story is loosely based on, was pulled from the rubble after being trapped for 8 days. He was rescued by New York Task Force 1, a search-and-rescue team made up of New York City police- and firemen. They had to cut through three slabs of concrete and countless other pieces of debris before his mother could crawl in to coax Niki and his sister out. When he finally made it out of the wreckage, Niki did so with a beaming smile and wide-open arms--the image of hope.
** The photograph taken of Niki by Mathew McDermott as they pulled him from the wreckage is being called "the iconic image" of this disaster. We are embracing its visibililty by using an illustration echoing the photograph for the cover of the book and printing the photograph in the back matter.
** In addition, this project is charity driven. Both Edwidge and Alix are donating a portion of their advances to Haitian aid organizations. Scholastic and their vendors are contributing portions of their costs for the production of this book.
