It’s the summer of 1962, and Scott and his friends spend their days playing baseball and thinking about girls. But the threat of nuclear war looms over everything they do, and they are haunted by the idea that they could all be dead tomorrow.
Even though the possibility of war is all anyone talks about, Scott’s dad is the only one in the neighborhood who actually prepares for the worst, building a bomb shelter to protect his family and stocking it with enough supplies to keep them alive for two critical weeks. The neighbors scoff, but then, in the middle of the night in late October, the unthinkable happens. Suddenly ten people are crammed into a shelter built for four. Ten people eating the food meant for four, breathing the air meant for four. Ten people struggling to survive—but what will await them when they eventually emerge?
Internationally bestselling author Todd Strasser has written his most impressive and personal novel to date, painstakingly yet sensitively exploring the terrifying what-ifs of one of the most explosive moments in history.
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“Exciting, harrowing…This is a superb entertainment…It thrums along with finely wrought atmosphere and gripping suspense… Strasser, a prolific writer for children and teenagers, writes with purpose and economy and structures his book intelligently.”
— New York Times Book Review
“A gripping and superbly constructed novel for sophisticated young readers…There’s not a word out of place in this evocative book.”
— Wall Street Journal“Strasser brings readers to the 1960s Long Island of his youth, with one crucial difference: in this story, the Cuban Missile Crisis leads Russia to bomb the US…An eye-opening ‘what if’ scenario about the human response to disaster.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)“Strasser once again combines terrific suspense with thoughtful depth…This riveting examination of things important to a boy suddenly thrust into an adult catastrophe is unputdownable.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)Be the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Todd Strasser is the internationally bestselling author of numerous books for children and teens, most notably The Wave and Give a Boy a Gun, which are taught in classrooms around the world. His popular and diverse YA and middle-grade books include the cyber thrillogy, which began with Wish You Were Dead, and the Help, I’m Trapped…series.
Jeff Cummings, as an audiobook narrator, has won both an Earphones Award and the prestigious Audie Award in 2015 for Best Narration in Science and Technology. He is also a twenty-year veteran of the stage, having worked at many regional theaters across the country, from A Contemporary Theatre in Seattle and the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta to the Utah Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City and the International Mystery Writers’ Festival in Owensboro, Kentucky. He also spent seven seasons with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.