Robert Cormier’s “After the First Death” (ATFD) and Robert Schwendke’s "Flightplan" (FP) explore important issues in today’s society. Female heroism and the abuse of trust are just two of the important issues that we currently face. Both texts ATFD and FP display acts of female heroism and the abuse of trust and how they are relevant to today’s society. Female heroism is a strong theme in “After the First Death”. Kate is the female hero. She is brave, intelligent, witty and unafraid, even in tough situations. A female’s maternal instincts of love and care to their friends and family is shown in this text. The quote “At least the kids were safe, Kate thought. At least? No, not least. The children had been the important ones from the beginning," shows how Kate thought about the kids on the bus as her own. She attempted to save as many children’s lives as possible, but she was rewarded with nothing but the feeling of wholeheartedness of saving the children and knowing that she did everything she could. She took life-threatening risks to save them, evident when after endless thought she manages to lock Miro out of the bus and almost manages to drive it to safety, even when she knows that both Miro and Artkin are imminent threats. Another text that similarly explores the role of female heroism is Flightplan. Kyle Pratt uses similar skills and feminine traits to overcome the protagonist, who is Carson, the air marshal. Like ATFD, Kyle has strong maternal instincts. She does not give up when she finds that Julia is missing. Throughout the flight, she repeatedly asks different people if they have seen Julia. She screams, “Where is she? WHERE DID YOU PUT HER?” to Carson. She asks the flight attendants “Have you seen my daughter?” and she tells the pilot “There's nine closets on this plane, right? There's four up and there's five down. And nobody's checked any of them. There's seven galleys, there's the crew qua