The Short Version
Jim DeFede’s The Day the World Came to Town (2002) tells the true story of the week after September 11, 2001, when 38 diverted planes landed in Gander, Newfoundland, a town of barely ten thousand, and the town and its neighbors took in more than 6,500 passengers and crew. It inspired the Broadway musical Come From Away. It is a strong book club pick because it is short, about two hundred and fifty pages, organized day by day, and full of specific acts of kindness that people want to talk about.
Our review gives it four and a half out of five: one of the most comforting books about one of the darkest days in modern history. The prose is plain journalism and there are many names to keep track of. If your group is not ready to revisit September 11, even through a gentle lens, choose something else.
Discussion Questions
- The United States closed its airspace for the first time in its history, and hundreds of planes had to land elsewhere. What would you have expected a small town to do when 38 jets arrived at once?
- Gander’s airport opened in 1938 and was once the largest in the world because transatlantic flights stopped there to refuel. How does this history explain why the town could cope?
- A town of about ten thousand took in more than six thousand strangers, a rise of about two thirds in population. Which logistical detail impressed you most: the free sidewalk phones, the pharmacists tracking down medications, or the volunteers cooking thousands of meals?
- School bus drivers who were on strike put the strike on hold to drive passengers to shelters. Why do small acts like that stay with a reader?
- The book cuts between dozens of real people. Which did you find easiest to follow, and did the many names bother you, as our review warns?
- Hannah O’Rourke is stranded in Gander while her son Kevin, a New York firefighter, is missing at the World Trade Center. How does her story keep the kindness in Gander from feeling sugary?
- Rabbi Leivi Sudak is stranded in Glenwood, where a volunteer noticed the Orthodox passengers were not eating and had kosher meals delivered within an hour. What does that tell you about how the hosts thought about guests?
- Eddie Brake revealed through the rabbi that he had been born Jewish and had never told his neighbors. Why does a crisis make a person like that speak?
- Moldovan families who did not speak English were cared for by a Baptist church, communicating through gestures and charades. What does the scene show about communication across a language gap?
- Animals were stuck in cargo holds, including two rare bonobo apes and a puppy named Ralph, and SPCA volunteers cared for them for days. Why do the animal stories matter in a book about people?
- Passengers on Delta Flight 15 raised money on the flight home for a scholarship fund for students in Lewisporte. Why do you think the friendships lasted?
- The book is almost entirely positive. Our review says that is true to what people reported but that it is not a critical look at the response. Would you have wanted more complication?
- The book was written within about a year. What would a version written decades later add?
Applying It
Ask your group what they would do if their own community suddenly had to host thousands of strangers, and which resource in your town corresponds to Gander’s Lions Clubs, schools and churches. Then ask what small thing each person could offer a stranger this month.
The Book And The Musical
The musical Come From Away came about ten years after the book. Canadian writers Irene Sankoff and David Hein traveled to Gander in 2011 for the tenth anniversary and did their own interviews. It opened on Broadway in March 2017, won the Tony Award for Best Direction, and a filmed version reached Apple TV Plus in 2021. Some details are combined or dramatized, but the core is true. Captain Beverley Bass, Mayor Claude Elliott and Hannah O’Rourke appear in both. If your group has seen the show, ask which version of Hannah’s story hit harder.
What To Read Next
Our review is the best place to start before you pick it. Our true-story page checks the numbers, and our book versus musical comparison covers what changed on stage. Our books-like-it list gives six more true stories to read next.
