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Gr 5–8—"Dad had a gun. Mom was letting us eat in the den. Could there be any clearer signs that the end of the world was approaching?" During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Scott's father builds a bomb shelter in their backyard. Most of the neighbors ridicule the idea, but the day the bombs do go off, those same neighbors try desperately to get into the shelter. A few of them do get in, along with Scott's family, while the rest perish outside. The extra people, along with the lack of supplies, make for cramped, uncomfortable conditions, ...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

The Cuban Missile Crisis has received some excellent treatment in children’s literature in recent years—The Fire-Eaters (rev. 5/04) by David Almond; Rex Zero and the End of the World (rev. 3/07) by Tim Wynne-Jones; Countdown (rev. 5/10) by Deborah Wiles—but Strasser manages to put his own unique spin on the situation by imagining what might have happened if nuclear war had broken out. Scott’s father is one of the few ...Log In or Sign Up to Read More