Thank you Candlewick Press and Netgalley for an ARC of this book.

I really enjoyed reading this book and learning so much about an important to me year ! I learned lots about this period of time and found the book highly informative.

Highly recommended reading.

1968: TODAY’S AUTHORS EXPLORE A YEAR OF REBELLION, REVOLUTION, & CHANGE edited by Marc Aronson and Susan Campbell Bartoletti explores different perspectives on this turbulent and pivotal year.

From Mark Kurlansky to Jim Murphy and Loree Griffin Burns, the book is filled with engaging short works by fourteen award-winning nonfiction authors. Whether exploring personal experiences through memoir or examining a specific theme in a focused essay, each author puts a different spin on the year. While the book covers well-known topics, it also explores many themes not covered by other books on this time period.

The book begins with an introduction to the year 1968. The editors then divided the year into four sections. Author notes, source notes, a selected bibliography, and index are included.

Librarians will find this book to be a solid addition to the nonfiction collection. While the book would benefit from additional illustrators and primary source documents, the short work format will appeal to many readers. Ask youth to use one of the nonfiction works to jumpstart an inquiry project.

Published by Candlewick Press in September 2018. ARC courtesy of the publisher.

1968: a year of exaltation, complete freedom and rebellion against the establishment; the past years had meant to the USA a lot of unwanted changes.
The terrible assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in Dallas on November 22 1963, meant the end of a lot of hopes, like peace and dialogue with the rest of the world for the USA. The assassination of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, the first one a leader who fought with energy and pacifically for the rights of black people, the second brother of John Kennedy running for the Presidential campaign, meant another sad signal for the country.
In this canvas, pretty chaotic and dark, a crescent turmoil and dissatisfaction from every possible parts: women recriminated more rights; black people more rights, minorities as gays and lesbians more rights; people in general wanted a pacific country and the end of the Vietnam war. The frame?
Imagine them: young people from high school, from universities, idealist, in grade still of dreaming a better future; they wanted to fight for a different world with all their strength, asking to politicians in every possible way a different system, more equal, more inspired at good values, less hypocritical more close to common people. Their requests passed through every kind of rights: 1968? The wildest and at the same time sunniest movement never experienced and in grade of becoming important in Europe as well.

For this reason at 50 years of distance Candlewick publishes 1968:
Today’s Authors Explore a Year of Rebellion, Revolution, and Change Edited by Marc Aronson and Susan Campbell Bartoletti.

Beautiful you will love this anthology in grade of speaking to the heart of people.

I am optimistic: I see that the newest generations are fighting in the USA for great values and that the wind of the 1968 hasn't been forgotten at all but it is alive.

Unforgettable! You can't avoid to read it. Beautiful gift for teenagers! I want to recommend to parents these gits to their children. I know: teen age age is a particular phase but it is better a revolutionary teenager than not someone too comfy to the system. This is more than sure! Don't be scared of offering some slices of revolution to your son or your daughter, presenting to them the sweet taste of protest. Your son or daughter will grow up more intelligently.
And, more important, as it happened to the protagonists of this book: they won't never forget what it meant rebellion.


I thank NetGalley and Candlewick Press for this eBook.

I remember so much many events from this year- Dr Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy beiung shot and killed, My Lai massacre, Viet Nam War protests... so much was going on that year, so much I was a bit too young to understand. Curiosity about that year led me to requesting to read this book and I'm not sorry I did. It was very enlightening. What a pivotal year it was. I think it would be a good read for us younger baby boomers to read about what we were on the cusp of and also how the world changed because of that year. All those who came after us would benefit from reading it too just to see what the older baby boomers witnessed, reacted to and changed. Amazing collection of non-fiction works be contemporary authors.

1968 was an intense year: we lost Dr. Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy to assassins' bullets; the Vietnam war raged overseas while protests raged here in the States; Olympic athletes raised their hands in protest and military police marched on the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Mexico City, killing students and civilians during a protest. Fifty years later, where are we? You may be surprised. Fourteen authors share their memories and discuss pivotal events in 1968 in this anthology. David Lubar (Campfire Weenies and Nathan Abercrombie, Accidental Zombie series) discusses stand-up comedy in 1968, while Lenore Look (Alvin Ho and Ruby Lu series) researches the Chinese Cultural Revolution of 1968 and the lasting impact on China's citizens. National Book Award longlist nominee Elizabeth Patridge (Boots on the Ground) unites the anthologies with a running "Nightly News" prose poem that gives readers the stark cost of war: month by month tallies of American combat deaths, Vietnamese enemy combat deaths, and Vietnamese civilian deaths.

Each and every piece in 1968 is oustanding; it's nonfiction that reads like fiction, bringing readers back to that contentious year. Black and white photos throughout capture moments like the Olympic Black Power salute and choppers over Vietnam. There are small moments and sweeping movements, but each observation helps draw important parallels between where we were and where we are; how much we have changed, and how much we have, sadly, remained the same.

The contributor list is an all-star cast of middle grade and YA writers: Jennifer Anthony, Marc Aronson, Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Loree Griffin Burns, Paul Fleischman, Omar Figueras, Laban Carrick Hill, Mark Kurlansky, Lenore Look, David Lubar, Kate MacMillan, Kekla Magoon, Jim Murphy, and Elizabeth Partridge. Publisher Candlewick offers a sample chapter on their website, and I'd love to see a reader's/educator's guide written, too. 1968 is an essential add to YA collections, and I'd love to see this on summer reading (and school year reading) lists. This needs to be added to curriculum, DOE.

1968: Today's Authors Explore a Year of Rebellion, Revolution, and Change has a starred review from Kirkus.