Countdown, by Deborah Wiles

Adolescence is full of tragedies, nuances and excitement. Hormones may be to blame for the more dramatic instances, but embarking on the teenage years in the midst of a time of real fear can add an entirely different element. In Countdown, Wiles tells of Franny Chapman, a 12 year old girl growing up in Washington D.C. during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Franny has a loving father who is gone a good deal since he is a pilot in the Air force, a mother who is all business, a younger brother who is obsessed with being an astronaut (and perfect), an older sister who is in college and has her own ideas about how the future should be (that she keeps hidden through letters in code), and a great uncle that is wrought with flashbacks and totally consumed by the missile threat.

Franny is simply stuck in the middle. She isn't grown, but she isn't a kid. She is consumed with fear of the unknown as the duck and cover drills at school increase. Her nerves are given another hit when Chris, the boy next door moves back, and is something to look at, but it turns out that her former best friend, current enemy, Margie, has her sights set on him as well.

Franny must walk the fine line between breaking the rules to find out what her sister is up to and make it to the boys and girls Halloween dance party, while finishing her chores, making sure her Uncle doesn't faint again from trying to dig a bomb shelter and let her little brother know that he has nothing to be afraid of with the bomb threats, even though she is scared enough herself.

I thoroughly enjoyed the mixture of the story of a young girl during this historic time with actual quotes, news-clippings, background information, TV screen shots, etc. depicting what was actually seen at the time. This is the sort of book that truly makes history come alive.