Countdown

Deborah Wiles
Scholastic Press, 2010
377 pp. (Grades 5-8)

It's October of 1962 and eleven-year old Franny Chapman has a lot on her mind: her best friend isn't speaking to her, her older sister has left home, and the dreamy boy-next-door has moved back to town. Worse, at any minute the Soviets might drop the atomic bomb and kill them all. The First of an expected trilogy, Deborah Wiles' superb "documentary novel" of growing up during the Cold War splendidly captures the fear and innocence of the era in a brilliant combination of text and contemporary photographs. Readers of all ages will appreciate Franny's struggle to understand and balance the magnitude of what's happening in her own life and the world around her, as the Cuban Missile Crisis and the threat of the bomb loom large. Even better, its message of tolerance and the importance of communication for understanding reach beyond the pages of history. For readers eager to learn more, a historical note and book list follow the text.