21 March 2010 THIS MEANS WAR! by Ellen Wittlinger, Simon & Schuster, April 2010, 224p., ISBN: 978-1-4169-7101-6

"It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war that can thoroughly understand the profitable way of carrying it on."

-Sun Tzu, THE ART OF WAR

"We'll walk through my dukedom, and a paradise we will share."-- Gene Chandler, "Duke of Earl" (1962)

"Juliet's mother made sure they were finished with dinner in time to watch the news.  Juliet didn't want to watch, but then she thought it might make her feel better.  Maybe some solution had been found since the day before."But all the newscasters looked just as solemn as they had last night.  American ships were in the process of setting up a quarantine around Havana's harbor.  No foreign ships carrying any kind of weapons or missile parts would be allowed through.  She couldn't hear much else, because her parents started arguing."'I can't believe that idiot Kennedy has gotten us into this mess,' Don said.  'Eisenhower would never have been so stupid.'"'Eisenhower was not a choice,' Ethel reminded her husband.  'It was JFK or that awful Nixon.  And I certainly didn't trust him.'"'Well, he couldn't have been much worse than this guy!'"'That's easy to say since we'll never know, will we?'"

There is nothing like Facebook to make a birthday feel like A BIRTHDAY!!!  All these friends you've connected with from all these different parts of your life -- including, in my case, amazing author and illustrator friends -- are sending you scores of birthday greetings all day long. 

One of the most memorable birthday greetings I received on Facebook was from a long-ago school friend who recalled being at my fifth grade birthday party.  I don't have the photo from that party handy at the moment, but it doesn't matter -- I have run across it so many times over the past forty-four years that I can visualize all of the guys as we posed together in front of the fireplace downstairs.  

Gosh, I was so happy that afternoon.  I can still remember that feeling of me and the guys all hanging out together.  I had no idea that day how the whole social thing -- the whole boy and girl thing -- would change so dramatically over the next couple of years.     

This developmental change is part of what is going on in THIS MEANS WAR! by Ellen Wittlinger. 

Juliet has been best friends with Lowell since before they both started kindergarten, but now Lowell suddenly wants to be hanging with the guys.  And the guys don't want any part of Juliet hanging around them.  They want to do stuff they consider to be guy stuff.  To top it all off, her girlfriends are suddenly getting all weird about guys.  And if that is not enough insanity, the world is possibly going to end any day because Russia is developing missile launch sites in Cuba and there is a real threat of nuclear war.  Everyone in Lathrop is particularly aware and tense about these international developments because half of them have husbands/fathers/friends' fathers stationed at the Air Force base that adjoins the town. 

Into this mix in the fall of 1962 comes the new girl in town, the daughter of an Air Force mechanic.  Patricia Marie Osgood, known as Patsy, is a tomboy with serious attitude.  The first time the neighborhood bully gives Juliet and her a hard time, Patsy gives it right back.  And so the hostilities begin.

"To know your enemy you must become your enemy."-- Sun Tzu

Thanks to that first confrontation, the tension steadily grows between the boys (Lowell, Mike, Tommy, and the aforementioned bully Bruce Wagner) and the girls (Juliet, Patsy, Annette, and Linda) and it leads to a challenge and the acceptance of the challenge to take part in a series of increasingly dangerous competitions and dares to see who are better -- the boys or the girls.

So, in tandem, the stakes escalate to the brink of no return as the parallel situations play out: U.S. versus U.S.S.R and Boys versus Girls.  

"Patsy stopped walking and glared at Juliet.  'How can you say that?  We're proving that we're just as good as they are.  Better, in fact!  This is important!  You can't give up!'"'I guess I forgot why it's so important.'"Patsy blew up her cheeks with air and seemed about to explode.  'Didn't you say that Lowell thought you weren't good enough to hang around with him and his friends?  Well, we're proving we're good enough!'"'How is having a war with them going to make them want to hang around with us?  Won't it just make them hate us more?'"'Who cares?  At least they'll know we're better than them.'"Is that what they'd think?  Juliet doubted it."   

"[impatiently]  Let's go, Wilbur!

Go?  You're on the bottom!

Sorry!  I forgot!"

-- from Mister Ed

Author Ellen Wittlinger clearly had a very fun time developing the 1962 setting.  There are returnable soda bottles and The Twist, TV dinners, roller skate keys, and the slang of that time.  The references to those long-ago days that have the most significance to the story involve the business in which Juliet's parents are engaged: a family market that is slowly being strangled by the local supermarket.

"Yes, I, oh, I'm gonna love you, oh, oh

Nothing can stop me now

‘Cause I'm the Duke of Earl

So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah"

Of course, an aspect of the story that is so relevant to today is the failure of the U.S. -- forty-eight years after the Cuban Missile Crisis -- to come to terms with Cuba.  I keep hoping that the girl running the State Department is going to be given the opportunity to show the boys how to produce some real peace on that front. 

Richie Partington, MLIS

Instructor, San Jose State University

School of Library and Information Science

http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/people/faculty/partingtonr/partingtonr.php

FTC NOTICE: Richie receives free books from lots of publishers who hope he will Pick their books.  You can figure that any review was written after reading and dog-earring a free copy received.  Richie retains these review copies for his rereading pleasure and for use in his booktalks at schools and libraries.