1950's

  • Band of Brothers (Frankel)
  • Black Board Jungle
  • Bridges of Toko-Ri (Michener)
  • Cousins (Milton)
  • Freedom's Children: Young civil rights activists tell their stories from the 50s and 60s
  • Henry III  (Krumgold) is about a gifted boy whose parents decide to build a bomb shelter under their house in Long Island
  • I Am the Clay (Chaim Potok) chronicles the struggle of North Korean refugees during the civil war there in the early 1950s.
  • Manchurian Candidate (John Lahr) seems excellent choices since both tap into the racism and paranoia which was and is endemic to American Society.
  • My Louisiana Sky (Holt)
  • My Name is Seepeetza (Shirley Stirling)About a Native American school in the 50s
  • October Sky (Homer Hickman) was set in the early fifties. It is a wonderful book about Howard Hickman's young adulthood. It is long and challenging but my eighth graders could not put it down!
  • On the Beach (Nevil Shute) certainly reflects some of the issues
  • Pork Chop Hill (Marshall)
  • Rock and Roll Generation: Teen Life in the 50s
  • The Chosen (Chaim Potok) is probably set in the 1950's; it's about two Jewish boys growing up in New York City,
  • The Outsiders (S. E. Hinton) which deals with the disconnect between the cultures of the well-to-do teenagers of a southwestern city and the poor Hispanic kids.
  • The Pledge (Howard Fast) is a superb novel about the effects of the House Unamerican Activities Committee (The Army McCarthy hearings) on some of the most creative Americans.
  • The Right Stuff (Tom Wolfe) would be great for kids who are fascinated by space flight and astronauts.
  • To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)


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