Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 2010 (Vol. 78, No. 8))
Just as 11-year-old Franny Chapman squabbles with her once-best friend in their neighborhood near Andrews Air Force Base, outside of Washington, D.C., President Kennedy and Chairman Khrushchev are also at odds. Franny's spot-on "Heavens to Murgatroyd" dialogue captures the trepidation as the world holds its breath during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Adding to the pressure are her college-student, activist older sister, who may be a spy, her aspiring-astronaut younger brother, who refuses to eat, her steely, chain-smoking mother, who has inexplicably burst into tears, her often-absent pilot father, now spending long days on base, and her PTSD-suffering, World War I–veteran Uncle Otts, who's digging up the front yard to build a bomb shelter. Wiles's "documentary novel," based on her own childhood memories and the first in The Sixties Project trilogy, has a striking scrapbook feel, with ingeniously selected and placed period photographs, cartoons, essays, song lyrics, quotations, advertisements and "duck and cover" instructions interspersed through the narrative. References to duct tape (then newly invented), McDonald's and other pop culture lend authenticity to this phenomenal story of the beginnings of radical change in America. (historical note, author's note, bibliography) 2010, Scholastic, 400p, $17.99. Category: Historical fiction. Ages 10 to 13. Starred Review. © 2010 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Elizabeth Bush (The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, July 2010 (Vol. 63, No. 11))
Franny Chapman finds that life in Maryland has taken some some getting used to—it’s certainly not as open and sunny as Hawaii, where her father was previously stationed—but she’s a good student and she has a best friend, Margie, to rely on. Or she used to have: fifth-grade friendships are in a state of realignment, with Margie gravitating toward Gale, who lives life on a longer leash; the presence of a cute boy in the neighborhood who will actually talk to girls further destabilizes the chums. As Franny struggles with the commonplace trials of adolescence and middle-child family status, the country undergoes its own epic trial, the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and a nation of anxious adults must prepare the children for nuclear emergency while tamping down their own rising panic. The heavy page count of the novel (the first title in an anticipated trilogy) is somewhat mitigated by a plethora of period ads, newspaper articles and photographs, maps, song lyrics, and other cultural references that set the crisis within the context of parallel national interests and concerns. Compelling as the images are, though, they flash by largely unexplained, and even Wiles’ appended photo credits and notes don’t do enough to bring most younger readers up to speed. Still, Franny is a convincing narrator who will encourage readers to consider how one might juggle family, school, and friends when the end of the world is at hand Review Code: Ad -- Additional book of acceptable quality for collections needing more material in the area. (c) Copyright 2006, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 2010, Scholastic, 400p.; Reviewed from galleys, $17.99. Grades 5-8.