BLOGGERS AND READERS WEIGH IN ON FALLOUT

Wow! I loved Fallout by Todd Strasser! Judging from the reviews and press I've read about the novel, it seems like most people did as well. I don't know why I didn't make the connection when I started reading, but I realized on his website that Strasser also wrote The Wave, which I had to read in my 8th grade Reading class. I remember hating the teacher, but loving that book and its implications.

 I experienced something I don't often get to with novels: I felt like I was right there with the characters. The way that Strasser described the tension in the shelter and the anxiety of the neighbors made me really feel like I was living it with them - horrifying and intriguing.

 I also loved the way Strasser examined human nature - the way the characters changed from ridiculing Scott's dad's shelter to wanting in on it, and then once they were in, criticizing his hap-hazard gathering of items like food, water, clothing, etc. - the ultimate "looking a gift horse in the mouth," would have to be critiquing the man who saved your life. I really loved watching these changes unfold and seeing how unpredictable people can be when faced with catastrophic events. For instance, one of the characters, Mrs. Shaw, says she would never be able to sacrifice someone else's life to save her own. She's obviously shocked when she learns that her husband did just that: he helped Scott's dad keep too many people from getting into the shelter, essentially killing them.
---  http://mrstolleson.blogspot.com/2013/07/fallout-by-todd-strasser.html


Todd Strasser’s amazing book, Fallout, does not disappoint! Through 6th-grader, Scott, we experience the horror of 10 people trying to survive underground in an bomb shelter that’s only supplied for 4. Alternating chapters show us what led up to the Cold War nightmare. It’s the first middle-grade novel I’ve read in a while that had me biting my nails to the quick. Scary and fantastic!
---- http://www.librarything.com/work/13912275/reviews


I was hooked within the first chapter! What would have happened if the Cuban Missile Crisis hadn't been prevented? Not knowing much about this time period, I was intrigued by the angst felt within all households at this time. How do you prepare for the incomprehensible? Todd Strasser does a fantastic job describing what almost happened!  

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17262252-fallout


A fascinating--and terrifying-- re-envisioning of the Cuban Missile Crisis told through the eyes of a 12 year old whose father was the only one in the neighborhood to preparefor nuclear war.
What if the crisis wasn't averted?

The bunker scenes are frightening--they would make a great play--like ANNE FRANK or 12 ANGRY JURORS. Multiple personalities struggling in close quarters.
Great tie-in with Z FOR ZECHARIAH.  


Compelling chilling story.
---  http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17262252-fallout

Richie's Picks Gives Fallout Five Stars

  
 

                           
 

Richie's Picks: FALLOUT by Todd Strasser, Candlewick, September 2013, 272p., ISBN: 978-0-7636-5534-1

"Yes we're gonna have a wingding
A summer smoker underground
It's just a dugout that my dad built
In case the Reds decide to push the button down."
-- Donald Fagan, "The New Frontier"

"The Russians were evil. Their chubby bald-headed leader, Nikita Khrushchev, had crooked teeth and an ugly gap between the front two, which showed that Russians didn't even believe in orthodontia. And if that didn't make him anti-American enough, there was the time he'd come to the United Nations and banged his shoe on the rostrum, which proved beyond a doubt that the Commies were unpredictable, violent, and crazy enough to blow us all up."

"We'll break down these walls with our music and our art"
-- from a prayer during the opening ceremony at the Enchanted Forest transformational music and arts festival

I pause from my reading to watch some of the more talented dancers gyrating amidst the redwoods. It's early evening but, being just days beyond the solstice, it is still quite warm and there will still be light for at least another hour.

From my perspective, this is a young crowd. You really need to scan the scene closely to see those who might have been alive during the Summer of Love, no less recall the days of the Cuban Missile Crisis. There's one. A couple more over there, but not many.

It's a really relaxed vibe at this weekend festival in the northern California coastal hills. Officially a no-alcohol venue, the vast majority here are blissed out on pot and redwoods, friendships and frisbees, marathon dancing to the electronic music, and a killer, thrumming speaker system that is shaking the ground under me.

And here I sit, amidst the peaceful play of a young generation, reading a tense story directly related to what was the scariest aspect of my childhood -- the threat of nuclear war, and those air raid drills where you'd duck and cover under your school desk as if that would mitigate the effects of a nuclear bomb attack.

The world has made it this far, thanks to the negotiations that ended the Cuban Missile Crisis of my childhood. But in the alternative world in which Todd Strasser's FALLOUT takes place, the Cuban Missile Crisis does, in fact, lead to nuclear war.

"The metal rungs hurt the bottoms of my bare feet as I lower myself. The dark air in the shelter is cool and damp and smells like mildew. Suddenly boxes and bags of things shower down, bouncing off my head and arms, and falling into the shadows below. I cry out in surprise, even though it doesn't really hurt. Already Mom's feet are on the rungs just above me.
"'Hurry!' Dad yells.
"'Ow!' Sparky cries, and I wonder if Dad accidentally banged him into something as he tried to lower him through the trapdoor.
"One of my feet touches the cold concrete floor; the other steps on a box that collapses with a crunch.
''In there!' a man's voice shouts.
"Above me, Mom yells, 'Careful, Edward!'"

I knew how good FALLOUT was going to be when I found myself toying with the idea of putting it down at the end of the first chapter. By that point, it was already making me feel incredibly uncomfortable. Queasy, in fact.

Scott's father had a fallout shelter built under the addition to their home. It's the only one in the American neighborhood in which they live. When nuclear war breaks out, and Scott, his parents, and his little brother scramble to get down into the shelter, some neighbors who know about it break into their house and force their way into the shelter. The door is sealed and time below ground begins.

But the supplies that have been stockpiled in the shelter are only meant to support four lives, not this crowd. Thus, the two weeks that need to be spent in the shelter -- while the radiation levels outside decrease sufficiently to permit going out without assuredly dying -- provide an oft-ugly look at human nature when fear, hunger, claustrophobia, prejudice, and survival instincts all set in.

Told from Scott's perspective, the chapters in FALLOUT alternate between the preceding months, where we get to know these characters in their more normal states of being, and the days in the shelter that get more and more tense as the lack of food and supplies force decisions to be hammered out and permit our seeing a very dark side of humankind.

And what I'm thinking about, as I gaze across this crowd of beautiful young people, and think about my own children who are part of this generation, is how, fifty-one years after the Cuban Missile Crisis brought us to the verge of nuclear war, there remain thousands of nuclear warheads in the world today. Sadly, the hatred in the world that divides countries and religious groups, combined with the existence of these weapons, assures us that the threat of nuclear war remains as ever-presently real now as it was back then.

"And when I really get to know you
We'll open up the doors and climb into the dawn"
-- Donald Fagan

                           
Richie Partington is a well-regarded and influential blogger and I love the way he works the review into a time and place and Donald Fagen's (Steely Dan) lyrics. Thanks, Richie!

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/655736262

 

FALLOUT get starred review from Kirkus

FALLOUT [STARRED REVIEW!]
Author: Todd Strasser

Review Issue Date: July 15, 2013
Online Publish Date: July 3, 2013
Publisher: Candlewick
Pages: 272
Price ( Hardcover ): $16.99
Publication Date: September 10, 2013
ISBN ( Hardcover ): 978-0-7636-5534-1
Category: Fiction

 

Strasser once again combines terrific suspense with thoughtful depth when the bombs really do fall in this alternate-history Cuban missile crisis thriller.
Eleven-year-old Scott’s family becomes the laughingstock of their neighborhood when, worried about possible nuclear attack, they build a bomb shelter. However, when the Civil Defense siren sounds, sending them to the shelter, they can’t keep their neighbors out, even though they have enough food for only their own family. In chapters that alternate between their time in the shelter and the weeks leading up to the attack, the story reveals the strengths and weaknesses of the characters. Scott and his friend Ronnie, the rather nasty neighborhood smartass, continue their friendly rivalry in the shelter, while their parents reveal much about their own personalities. The book examines racism; when Scott’s mother becomes so seriously injured that it seems she will not survive, their neighbor wants to put both her and the family’s black maid out of the shelter to die. The author peppers the narrative with tidbits from the early ’60s, such as Tang, MAD magazine and talk of “Ruskies,” “Commies” and duck-and-cover school drills. Scott’s believably childlike narration recounts events and adults’ reactions to them as he understands them.
This riveting examination of things important to a boy suddenly thrust into an adult catastrophe is un-put-down-able. (Thriller. 10-14)

“The realities of classroom teaching today,” i.e., the stranglehold of censorship.

An e-mail from a teacher who’s read the FALLOUT ARC and wishes she could use it in her classroom, but can’t.  Here’s what she says:

Dear Mr. Strasser,

 I am a sixth grade English teacher who just finished Fallout.  It was a compelling story and I must confess, I skipped the last three flashback chapters to keep reading about the shelter-ettes.

Selfishly, I am hoping you are hard at work on a sequel!  We have read The Diving Bell as a class in previous years and I initially thought I could use Fallout as a book club book. Simply loved the topic and how you write.

Here is my dilemma:  Thanks in part to a rabid Evangelical parent I had the misfortune to encounter two years ago,  our district now has a lengthy book approval process.  I fear the discussion between the boys about homosexuality will cause the book to be rejected. (not the Playboy mention, underage  drinking or nudity in the bunker, mind you.)

 Please know this does not reflect my personal views but rather the realities of classroom teaching today.   I would welcome your thoughts on how I could present this to the close-minded.

I wrote back:  Thanks for your note. I appreciate your kind words about the book and I am sorry about the situation you're in. The best answer that I feel I can personally give to your request comes in two parts.

 First, the book has been chosen by the Junior Library Guild (http://www.juniorlibraryguild.com/company/).  As you will see from this link, they probably know as much as anyone about choosing age-appropriate books for readers.

In addition, how about taking the constitutional approach? Do the people involved in the book approval process believe in the rights granted under US Constitution? How would they feel about someone else deciding to take away their constitutional rights? Do they understand that the First Amendment also protects their right to practice the religion of their choice? How would they feel if someone came along and told them they could no longer practice their religion?

We believe in Freedom of Speech. It’s part of the foundation of our country. The people in question has every right to prevent their own children from reading a book. But under our Constitution they have no right to decide for others what they can read.

And she wrote back:

Re: Freedom of speech.  It's a great concept but does not really apply to teachers in the classroom.

(Believe me, I researched and met with ACLU lawyers at my own expense.)  As you are well aware, educators have been vilified in the media and are under attack. We are no longer entrusted as professionals to get the best, most thought provoking books into the hands of readers. It is a very

sad situation.  The overwhelming threat of ligation from lunatics trumps all. 

That last paragraph breaks my heart. Welcome to primary education circa 2013, where teachers’ hands are cuffed and censorship not only festers, but thrives.

BEA Buzz for Fallout?

I signed Fallout ARCs yesterday at BEA.  Candlewick provided four large boxes of galleys. What a pleasure it was to see that they’d printed so many.  The line for signatures was long. There were YA librarians looking for giveaways for summer reading programs, but also a number who said they’d heard good buzz about the book and wanted to take a look.  

What they're saying over at Goodreads:

"Although it’s historical fiction, it reads like survival/dystopian fiction and I found it to be very powerful."

 "I was absolutely riveted by the powerful bunker scenes - they convey humanity at its best and worst."

Fallout Chosen as Junior Library Guild Selection!

 

While it won't be officially published until September, Fall out has been chosen by the Junior Library Guild.

Fallout is part memoir and part speculative fiction. It is rooted in my experience as a twelve-year-old boy living through the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.  What made this event unique for me was that our family was the only one in town who actually had a full-scale bomb shelter built beneath our house. 

This gave me a unique perspective in as much as I not only worried along with everyone else in our country about the very real possibility of a World War Three, but I had to worry about trying to survive as well. Many of my anxieties concerned the possibility that a war might start while my father was at work, and therefore too far away to get home before the bombs fell. In that case:  1) Would there be time for me to run home from school before the bombs fell?  2) Since everyone in town knew we had a bomb shelter, would others get there first and demand to be allowed in? 3) What if my mother, brother and I got inside and our neighbors came and wanted us to let them in? 4) How would we know how long to stay in the shelter? 5) What would we do when we got out? These worries mixed with and influenced many of the other insecurities – about girls, sex, athletics, school – that boys that age feel.

Thus the Bomb is partly the story of what really happened, and partly about what could have happened. As a memoir, it is a recollection of the affect such a dire world event had on an innocent young man who was growing up in a protected homogeneous middle-class environment. As speculative fiction it is an exploration of what very well might have occurred had there really been a war.

 And finally, I hope that, in its own small way, it is a celebration of life in the face of adversity.

The Houses of Wish You Were Dead

 

Wish You Were Dead is set in the fictional town of Soundview, which is not unlike Larchmont/Mamaroneck where I live. It’s a good setting for a mystery that involves income inequality because this is an area that displays some fairly stark examples of it. Housing ranges from mansions like Madison’s to the apartment in which Maura lives over a store.