It's 1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis is looming and 5th grader Juliet has just lost her beloved grandpa. On top of that, her best friend dumped her just because she's a girl. Left alone, Juliet befriends a new girl named Patsy who decides they should hold a contest to prove that girls are just as good as boys.

This is not an upbeat book. You'd think that the competition between boys and girls would at least be a little fun, but it's mostly not thanks to the older bully, Bruce, bossing everyone else around and Patsy's ferocious need to win. So while the book has good characters, good writing, and an interesting historical context, it didn't wow me because it felt like a big downer. The stress of the looming Cold War greatly affects Juliet, to the point where she seems constantly anxious and depressed. I think the author was worried about the book being too sad, so she had the characters tell a lot of corny jokes. I like a good corny joke, but they didn't really make up for all the gloom and doom.

Another complaint is that the story was a touch on the didactic side. I was especially weary of Juliet's prayers to God and her wondering over whether God exists (not because it wasn't believable, but because it seemed cliched).

This is a good book if you want to learn more about how ordinary kids were affected by the Cold War or if you want a book about how to deal with fear and loss. But it's not the best choice if you want boys vs. girls fun like in [b:The Boys Start the War|24196|The Boys Start the War (Boy/Girl Battle)|Phyllis Reynolds Naylor|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1167520590s/24196.jpg|1973511] by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. ( )

An engaging coming-of-age story set against the Cold War-era and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Deborah Wiles's Countdown: A Documentary Novel (Scholastic, 2010) is a superior novel with a coming-of-age story set against the same time period. ( )

Fifth-graders Juliet and Lowell have been best friends for years--but suddenly he'd rather hang out with the guys and pretend Juliet doesn't exist. Juliet is in the market for a new friend, and she finds one in Patsy: brave, strong, wonderful Patsy, who won't accept being considered less able than the boys. Patsy riles both the girls and the boys into a competition to prove which sex is better: 9 tests, boys v. girls, best five wins. Running races, climbing trees, and other tasks prove not only who the best athletes are, but where the lines are between bravery and foolhardiness.

Set against the cold war and Cuban missile crisis, This Means War lacks the subtlety of Wittlinger's other books. The "girls can do anything boys can do" message is part of nearly every scene through the first half of the book; the second half--in which the Cuban Missile Crisis becomes a major threat--carries a heavy-handed message about the inevitability of war, its potential to hurt innocent people, and its ultimate uselessness. This is aimed at upper-elementary/middle school readers, but the characters are too bland to hold much interest. It's a quick read when kids need a historical fiction book, but it's not likely to grab a more general audience. There's plenty of material here for a book discussion--gender roles, historical setting, bullies, coming-of-age, competition, etc--but it seems more a book written with these issues in mind than one that raised these issues organically in the plot. ( )

Juliet has been friends with Lowell for years. Now things seem to be changing. He seems to have drawn a line that says boys can do things girls can't and they can do them better. Juliet is hurt because they never seemed to have that problem before. Then she meets the new air force brat, Patsy. Patsy befriends her and together they have their own adventure until Juliet and the girls are told to get lost. Patsy lets the boys know that girls can do anything they can do only better. Led by the town bully the boys propose a series of tests to prove the girls wrong. This eventually becomes a "war" between them. The fact that the time period is when the U.S. is watching Russia and there are rumors of War, only heighten the war between the kids. How far will the kids to go to win?

This was a wonderful book about growing up and fears and how kids often handle them. It sets the time period wonderfully. Kids get a history lesson about the time period without being bombarded with a lot of historical facts in a dry way. I believe this is a book many students will be able to relate to on some level. ( )

This book brings the anxiety of the Cuban Missile Crisis for both the adults and the children of 1962 alive for the reader, but it first focuses on the smaller world of Juliet, a 10-year-old who can’t understand why her best friend, Lowell, is rejecting her to hang out with boys. The boys, Juliet, and a few other girls decide they will have a ten day contest to see who is superior, boys or girls, and it gets out of hand just as the events of the Cuban Missile Crisis heat up and absorbs the nation. Ellen Wittlinger, the author, does a good job of portraying the bewilderment of Juliet, who can’t understand why anyone, kids or nations, wants to fight each other, as well as her all-consuming fear of war and being blown up by the Russians. This is a book that got better and better as it went along, and by the end I was totally caught up in the story and also quite impressed with how the author blended the themes so effectively. Furthermore, all of the characters, kids and adults, were well drawn and multi-dimensional. ( )