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A review by shawnnaw
Suspect Red by L.M. Elliott
3.0
Thanks to the @kidlitexchange network for a review copy of this book. All opinions are my own.
Suspect Red is about a high schooler living in Washington DC during the early years of the cold war, while the McCarthy trials were going on. He has to navigate your typical high school social problems, with suspicion of "communist sympathies" everywhere - from the books he reads to the new neighbor and friend who comes from Czechoslovakia. All of this is made more important because his father works for the FBI and works closely with J. Edgar Hoover.
I enjoyed learning about this time of history - I really didn't know much about what went on during the McCarthy years. The author threw in history articles at the beginning of each chapter so you could get a feel for what was going on in the country at the same time the events of the chapter were occurring. It's difficult to believe that people weren't allowed to read certain books - such as Robin Hood - just because they seemed sympathetic to the Communist cause. The story was well done, and would be a great tool to teach middle schoolers about this time in history.
Suspect Red is about a high schooler living in Washington DC during the early years of the cold war, while the McCarthy trials were going on. He has to navigate your typical high school social problems, with suspicion of "communist sympathies" everywhere - from the books he reads to the new neighbor and friend who comes from Czechoslovakia. All of this is made more important because his father works for the FBI and works closely with J. Edgar Hoover.
I enjoyed learning about this time of history - I really didn't know much about what went on during the McCarthy years. The author threw in history articles at the beginning of each chapter so you could get a feel for what was going on in the country at the same time the events of the chapter were occurring. It's difficult to believe that people weren't allowed to read certain books - such as Robin Hood - just because they seemed sympathetic to the Communist cause. The story was well done, and would be a great tool to teach middle schoolers about this time in history.