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Countdown is the first in author Deborah Wiles' new young read trilogy about the 1960s. This first book is narrated by a fifth grader named Franny during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Franny just wants to figure out why her best friend is mad at her, how to get her neighbor Chris Cavas to like her back, and why her older sister Jo Ellen is acting so secretive -- all while dealing with bomb drills at school and her crazy Uncle Otts, who panics and tries to build a bomb shelter in the front yard. Franny is instantly relatable: she desperately wants her teacher, Ms. Rodriguez, to stop skipping her in class. She doesn't understand why her mother won't get her go to Gale's house (whose mother owns a Marilyn Monroe wig and lets Gale wear lipstick). Franny's little brother Drew ("Saint Drew" to Franny) wants to be an astronaut, but Franny has to help calm him down when he becomes terrified of being bombed. Franny even composes a letter to Chairman Krushchev asking him to stop threatening to blow America off the map. She is full of childish curiousity and naivety, but grows quite a bit by the end of the book.

The best part of Countdown is that the pages in between chapters are full of various media from the sixties. There are photos and quotes from JFK and Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as song lyrics and bomb safety propaganda. The seamless integration of photos and quotes into the text really helps to provide a historical and cultural context of the time period for the modern reader, without being dry or long-winded. Kids will love experiencing this time period from a peer's point of view, while teens and adults will appreciate the attention to detail, from Franny's dorky Buster Brown shoes and love of Nancy Drew books to Jo Ellen's record collection and growing social activism. Definitely one of the best children's books I've read this year!