Title: Countdown
Author: Deborah Wiles [website] [twitter]
Genre: Middle Grade, Young Adult
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Source: Provided by Publicist
Parental Warning: references to nuclear war

“I telegraph Uncle Otts to just stop! but he doesn’t hear me.  There’s a crater forming in the front yard.  Uncle Otts wipes his face with his handkerchief, loads up the wheelbarrow with chunks of our front yard, begins to roll the wheelbarrow toward the bushes, and then — he lets go of the wheelbarrow handles.  The wheelbarrow topples onto its side.  Uncle Otts staggers backward several steps, drops his shovel, and topples like a domino, flat onto his back.  Dead as a doornail. “

Summary (from the publisher):
Franny Chapman huts wants some peace.  But that’s hard to get when her best friend is feuding with her, her sister has disappeared, and her uncle is fighting an old war in his head.  Her saintly younger brother is no help, and the cute boy across the street only complicates things.  Worst of all, everyone is walking around just waiting for a bomb to fall.

It’s 1962, an it seems that the whole country is living in fear.  When President Kennedy goes on television to say that Russia is sending nuclear missiles to Cuba, it only gets worse.  Franny doesn’t know how to deal with what’s going on in the world — o more than she knows how to deal with what’s going on with her family and friends.  But somehow she’s got to make it through.

Opinion:
Touted as a “documentary novel” Countdown leverages imagery and quotes from the early 1960s to set the backdrop for the life of middle schooler Franny Chapman.  The youngest daughter of a pilot, Franny lives off base and attends public school just outside the confines of Andrews Air Force Base during a very tumultuous time in political history.  Surrounded on all sides by the effects of the Cuban Missile Crisis she attempts to navigate already difficult familial and social circumstances now exacerbated by worldwide tensions increased by the newly realized atomic age.

The absolute best part of this book was the aforementioned historical perspective.  The use of imagery and quotes interspersed between the book’s chapters is sure to educate young readers about this particular time period in a fun and entertaining way.  For me, a strong selling point is the fact that it targets visual learners as well as those who tend to be a bit more traditional.  I believe this approach provides to readers a better feeling for what it was really like to live in fear of an atomic bomb — the crouching under desks, the sitting in small tight shelters and all sort of other war related circumstances.

Don’t let all the pretty pictures fool you though, Countdown is an emotional story as well.  Showcasing the delicate family dynamics between parents and children, a healthy dose of sibling rivalry,  the strain of taking care of a senile older uncle and ultimately how all of this affects the friendships in a child’s life.   I found Franny to be an endearing character to follow through the story.  She was inquisitive and cunning yet still had a believable innocence and air of naiveté. At the age where friendships were tested by the impressions other children had of friends and family she felt profoundly the loss of her best friend as she distanced herself in favor of a more popular and less embarrassing crowd.

Not remotely preachy, Wiles teaches lessons on tolerance and acceptance.  Using the threat of annihilation at the hands of an atomic bomb as a framework she explores fear as a catalyst for relationship building and deconstruction. Thankful that this is done softly and with little hand wringing she makes her points firmly without beating the reader over the head with the need for change and understanding.

Great for school aged children and history loving adults alike, Countdown is a strong story with excellent characters well worth picking up and enjoying.