The Cold War Heats Up: Countdown and The Apothecary

I remember hiding under my desk during air-raid drills at school and exploring model bomb shelters at the state fair, so the Cold War doesn’t seem like “history” to me.  But to kids today, and their parents, that was a long time ago.  It’s worth knowing about for two reasons: first, it was the last “war” we actually won, and second, it’s an example of how peace through strength can actually work.  Neither of these novels will, all by themselves, give a sixth-grader a comprehensive view of what was at stake, but they could make good conversation starters.

Countdown, by Deborah wiles.  Scholastic, 2010, 377 pages.  Age/interest level: 10-14.

It’s the fall of 1962 in Virginia, and President Kennedy is making the speech of his life: “The secret, swift, extraordinary buildup of Communist missiles [in Cuba] is a deliberately provocative and unjustified change in the status quo which cannot be accepted by this country . . . “

To Franny Chapman, whose father is an air force officer in the Pentagon, the crisis is immediate and relevant, and shadows her life for the next two weeks.  Playing out against events of global import are the ups and downs of middle-gradehood: a difficult uncle and his unfortunate obsessions, worries about her siblings (her sister becoming a campus radical, her little brother quirky and fearful), the cute neighbor boy who moved back—and may like her!—and a nuclear falling-out with her best friend.  The latter brings on a personal crisis, at the same time a national emergency is building.  Both grownups and kids are frightened, and Uncle Otis is digging a bomb shelter in the backyard, just in case they have to use it.

Franny’s dilemma is one we all have to face sooner or later: How do we deal with worries that are totally out of our control?  She gets some good advice, surprisingly, from her sister the budding radical:  “There are always wonderful things happening in the world.  There are always wonderful things happening.  And it’s up to you to decide how you’re going to approach the world . . . how you’re going to live in it, and what you’re going to do.”  The book designers try to create a period feel with documentary-style collages between chapters: song lyrics, speech fragments, headlings, news photos, magazine layouts of fashion and home decorating, etc.  These may be more confusing than enlightening to young readers, but they’ll send grandmas on a quick trip down memory lane.  In the end, Franny’s conclusion is full-bodied and positive and hints at a divine power in control of it all: “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness therof/the world,/and they that dwell therein.”

Countdown is the first of a sixties trilogy by Deborah Wiles (author of the popular Every Little Bird That Sings).  Stay tuned for the Beatles!

• Worldview/Moral value: 3.5
• Artistic Value: 4

The Apothecary, by Maile Meloy.  Putnam/Penguin, 2011, 353 pages.  Age/interest level: 12-16.

We’re back to the mid-1950s: Janie Scott, age 14, has just moved to London with her parents, TV writers who are under suspicion in California.  Joe McCarthy is name nobody mentions, but reasons don’t matter to Janie, who’s disoriented and discontented.  On her first day of school she meets Benjamin Burrows, whose father (the apothecary) owns the little drug store around the corner.  Benjamin wants to be a spy and already has a worthy object: Leonid Shiskin, father of one of their classmates, whom Benjamin suspects is a Soviet agent.  But when the kids see Shiskin hand off a message to Mr. Burroughs in the park, the hypothetical gets personal and dangerous.  In short order, the apothecary disappears, there’s a surprising and brutal murder, and a supposedly sympathetic teacher is unmasked as an enemy.

Soon Janie and Benjamin are racing for their lives, in the pursuit of which they pick up a scrappy ally and open the door to an apparently supernatural dimension.  Mr. Burroughs is one member of a small bend of alchemists dedicated to dismantling the nuclear threat, using what looks like magic but is actually the rearrangement of matter—just what Einstein proposed and Andrei Sakarov, the brilliant Russian physicist, is working on.

It’s an interesting premise: does it work?  Not quite, for me.  Historical fantasy is a legitimate genre but it has to make sense within its own parameters.  Three kids are able to escape some really tough customers, attend a nuclear test, and help disarm a Soviet bomb with the help of alchemical formulas that produce wings and invisibility–the deus ex machina factor is working overtime.  Other credibility-stretches include the fantastic (Benjamin falls out of the sky into the frigid Arctic sea—and survives) and the puzzling (his father, a closely-watched operative, leaves a top-secret message in a public wastebasket).

There’s a lot of talk about dark forces and guardian spirits but also some beautiful writing: “The British Empire may be gone, but the Physic Garden is its green ghost, growing a little bit of India, china, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands, right in the middle of London.”  The two leads fall in love, which leads to some kissing, which they seem a little young for.  But, even though war is hell and nobody’s hands are squeaky clean, America emerges as the good guy in this conflict, and the story ends with a clever twist that begs for a sequel.

• Worldview/moral value: 3
• Artistic value: 3.5