Alright, so listen up, I’m gonna tell ya ’bout this book, “gound zero leo chavez”. Don’t you go expectin’ no fancy words from me, I’m just gonna tell it like it is, ya hear?
This “gound zero” thing, it’s about a boy, Brandon Chavez. He’s just a little fella, nine years old, livin’ in New York City back in 2001. Yep, that’s right, 2001. You know, the year them towers came tumblin’ down. Poor kid, he got caught right in the middle of it all.
- That boy, Brandon, he ain’t no angel, mind you. Got himself suspended from school for punchin’ some bully who was stealin’ gloves. Sounds like he had a good reason, though, those gloves were somethin’ special, Wolverine gloves, they were.
- And his daddy, well, he works at this fancy restaurant up in the towers. That’s where Brandon was on that terrible day. Can you imagine? A little boy, stuck in all that mess.
Now, the story, it jumps back and forth. One minute you’re with Brandon in New York, the next you’re way over in Afghanistan with a girl named Reshmina. She’s a bit older, eleven, and it’s 2019 for her. Different time, different place, but same kinda trouble, seems like.
This Reshmina girl, she wakes up and it’s all dark. Her grandma’s singin’ some song, “Momardene Afghane” it’s called. Then everybody’s gatherin’ ’round, family and neighbors, all in the dark. She tries to find her flashlight, poor thing.
It’s kinda like they’re showin’ you that bad things happen everywhere, no matter where you are or when it is. And it ain’t just about the big events, like them towers fallin’. It’s about the people, the little folks like Brandon and Reshmina, and how they deal with it all.
Brandon, that poor boy, he’s cryin’ for the folks who died. And he’s sad he didn’t get to tell his daddy he loved him. Can you blame him? His daddy, he’s gone, just like that. And Brandon, he’s stuck there with this fella named Richard, wonderin’ what’s gonna happen to him.
Richard, he tries to comfort the boy, tells him his own daddy died in Vietnam when he was just a kid. Says it’ll always hurt, but it’ll scar over, like a bad cut. You know, like when you fall and scrape your knee, it hurts like heck, but then it heals up, leaves a mark, but it ain’t so bad anymore.
This fella Richard, he tries to be strong for Brandon. But you know, it ain’t easy. Nobody knows what to do when somethin’ like that happens. You just try to get through it, one minute at a time. And that’s what they are tryin to show you I think, this ‘gound zero’ thing ain’t just about a place, it’s about that moment when everything changes, when the ground falls out from under you, you know?
So, they go back and forth, Brandon and Reshmina, their stories twistin’ and turnin’. It’s like they’re showin’ you that even when the worst happens, people can still be good. They help each other, they try to do the right thing, even when it’s hard, real hard.
And that’s what this “gound zero leo chavez” is all about, far as I can tell. It’s about tough times and tough people. It’s about loss and sadness, but it’s also about findin’ a way to keep goin’, even when you don’t think you can. It ain’t always pretty, but it’s real, ya know?
This ain’t no history lesson, though. It’s about feelin’s, ya see? It’s about what it’s like to be scared and lost and how you gotta find the strength to keep on livin’ even when the world feels like it’s ended.
And you know, that’s something everybody can understand, whether you’re a little boy in New York or a girl in Afghanistan or just a plain ol’ person like me. We all gotta face hard times, and we all gotta find a way to get through ‘em. So this ‘gound zero’ it teaches us I guess, or maybe it just reminds us, that we ain’t alone in this world. We are all just tryin’ to get by, ya know? We are all in it together and gotta look out for each other. That’s what I got from it, anyway.
