Fallout by Todd Strasser

Pages: 258

Intended Audience: Tweens and up

Genre: Speculative fiction (Alternate history)

Notes for Parents: Contains some mature scenes

The Back Cover

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?

What the cover doesn’t tell you:

The author has a very personal connection to this story in that his family was one of those few who built a bomb shelter in the 1960s. Read the “Author’s Note” at the back of the book!

What’s good?

It’s a modern day Noah’s Ark story when Scott’s dad is ridiculed for building a bomb shelter in the backyard. But no one is laughing when the sirens sound and the bombs drop sending Scott and his family, and six other unexpected people underground, trapping them together until the radiation dissipates. The plot is simple but filled with tension and complications. The pace is quick with Scott’s narrative flipping between his innocent childhood before the sirens sound, and his horrifying new reality in the bomb shelter. This is less of an adventure and more of a character study as Scott is more disturbed by the behavior of the adults than the arrival of nuclear war. The story touches lightly, but learnedly, on many subjects including the origins of the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, racism, segregation, communism, the effects of nuclear radiation, and the senselessness of mutually assured destruction. Difficult decisions, disturbing moments, and complex problems make this a provocative and compelling story.

Best Part: The exchange between the boys and their teacher when they’re kept in at recess for bad behavior.

What isn’t good?

There are some mature scenes (like alcohol being served to minors and Ronnie’s tawdry obsessions) that ring true but don’t actually add to the story in any useful way. Scott’s friend’s nicknames are annoying, especially Why Can’t You Be Like Johnny? Mr. McGovern is too patronizing while Scott’s dad is too tolerant, though it’s hard to guess how anyone would act in such a situation. The ending was appropriate, yet felt like the beginning of something. Things were just starting to happen – and then it was over.

Worst part: Scott’s essay about why people don’t want negroes to go to college

Recommendation ☻☻☻☻☻ (5/5)

The Cold War reached its height in the 1960s when both sides (essentially the US and Russia) were heavily armed with nuclear weapons. The fear of nuclear war was so real, that schools had air raid drills, and some families built bomb shelters. While the bombs never dropped, what if they had? Fallout tells an unsettling tale of what might have happened if a nuclear war had been waged. This story offers historical insight, moral quandaries, and is an excellent character study for the middle grades. Highly recommended. 

Strasser, Todd. Fallout. New York: Scholastic, 2013.