Countdown by Deborah Wiles.

The first in a trilogy, this novel is about an 11-year-old girl and her family in 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Photos and other artifacts from the time period add to the book’s appeal.

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One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia.

Set in the 1960s, this novel is unusual in that it focuses on the Black Panther movement in the context of one African American family and the summer three sisters, who have been raised by their father and grandmother, visit their mother in California where she is involved in the Black Panther movement.

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See the full reading list at about.com

For more summer reading reading lists, please visit the Curtis Memorial Library’s Reader’s Corner.