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.

As Easy as Falling Off the End of the Earth

Lynne Rae Perkins
New York: Greenwillow Books, 2010
353 pp. (Grades 6-10)

Ry steps off his train to make a phone call and strays too far. He watches, horrified, as it leaves him stranded in the middle of the Montana prairie. Thus begins Lynne Rae Perkins' novel of a haphazard journey across the United States and the Caribbean in search of home and family. With a plot that is constantly moving forward, turning, and catching the reader by surprise, the novel has great appeal for reluctant readers, while rich characterization will endear even the more sophisticated teen, boy or girl. Naysayers may criticize Ry's decision to put his faith in complete stranger, or find the ending on the impossible side of incredible, but young readers will delight in the novel's adventurous spirit and happily take the leap.