Red Bandanna, The - Tom Rinaldi

The New York Times bestselling story of Welles Crowther, whose actions on 9/11 offer a lasting lesson on character, calling and courage. One Sunday morning before church, when Welles Crowther was a young boy, his father gave him a red handkerchief for his back pocket. Welles kept it with him that day, and just about every day to come; it became a fixture and his signature. When the Twin Towers fell, Welles's parents had no idea what happened to him. Welles had a Wall Street job on the 104th floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center, but his dream was to become a firefighter with the FDNY. In the unbearable days that followed, his parents came to accept that he would never come home. Eight months after the attacks, however, Welles's mother read a news account from several survivors, who said they and others had been led to safety by a stranger. After leading them down, the young man turned around. "I'm going back up," was all he said. The survivors didn't know his name, but despite the smoke and panic, one of them remembered a single detail clearly: the man was wearing a red bandanna. Tom Rinaldi's The Red Bandanna is about a fearless choice, about a crucible of terror and the indomitable spirit to answer it.