Decades Book Challenge

 

 

 

December  2010-2023 - Topic Ideas

2010

• December 17 – The Arab Spring, a revolutionary wave, begins in Tunisia, and eventually spreads across the Middle East and the Arab world, with widespread protests, demonstrations, riots and civil wars for free elections and human rights.

2011

• March 11 – The 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami and subsequent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan leave 15,899 dead.
• April 29 – An estimated two billion people watch the wedding of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey in London.
• May 2 – Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, is killed in a raid at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan by the U.S. Navy's SEAL Team 6 (DEVGRU).
• October 20 – Deposed dictator Muammar Gaddafi is captured and killed by the National Liberation Army of Libya, during the Libyan Civil War.

2012

• September 11–12 – In Benghazi, Libya, an attack is coordinated against two United States government facilities, by members of the Islamic militant group Ansar al-Sharia.
• December 14 – The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting takes place, the deadliest mass shooting in an elementary school in US history, with 27 deaths.

2013

• February 28 – Pope Benedict XVI resigns, becoming the first pope to do so since 1415. Benedict takes the title pope emeritus. At the subsequent papal conclave, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina is elected pope on March 13, becoming the first Latin American pope. Bergoglio takes the name of Pope Francis.
• December 5 – South African political and civil leader Nelson Mandela dies at the age of 95, from natural causes.

 

 

2014

• July 8–August 26 – In Israel, tensions rise again between Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the State of Israel. Hamas fire hundreds of missiles into civilian cities in Israel, and the IDF retaliates and conducts airstrikes on the Gaza Strip for more than a month, with high casualties on both sides.
• September 18 – Scotland votes to remain part of the United Kingdom during the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.
• September–October – During the Syrian civil war, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant rises and seizes territories in northern Iraq and Syria, near the border with Turkey. The United States lead a coalition of more than 30 countries to destroy ISIL. Meanwhile, Russia leads its own coalition, along with Syria, Iraq and Iran, and Russia's military action begins on September 30, 2015.

2015

• March 6 – NASA's Dawn probe enters orbit around Ceres, becoming the first spacecraft to visit a dwarf planet.^[64][65]
• June 26 – The Supreme Court of the United States determines that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry in a landmark case Obergefell v. Hodges.
• November 30–December 12 – During the UN summit on Climate Change, 193 nations agree to reduce carbon emissions starting in 2020.

2016

• June 5 – Hillary Clinton becomes the Democratic Party's nominee for president of the United States, making her the first woman to be nominated for president by a major party.
• June 12 – In Orlando, Florida, Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old security guard, kills 49 people and wounds 53 others in a terrorist attack inside Pulse, a gay nightclub.
• November 8 – Donald Trump is elected as the 45th president of the United States, defeating Hillary Clinton.

2017

• January 21–22 – In opposition to Donald Trump's inauguration, millions of people in the US and worldwide join the Women's March.
• January 27 – U.S. President Donald Trump signs an executive order restricting travel and immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries. This order was blocked by the U.S. federal courts; a second, related order issued by Trump was also blocked by the federal courts.

2018

• February 6 – SpaceX successfully conducts its maiden flight of its most powerful rocket to date, the Falcon Heavy, from LC39A at John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida.^[68]
• March 24 – In over 900 cities internationally, people participate in demonstrations against gun violence and mass shootings, calling for stronger gun control in the March for Our Lives, which was a student-led demonstration in response to the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida that took place in February 14.
• May 19 – The wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle is held at St George's Chapel, England, with an estimated global audience of 1.9 billion.

2019

• February 27–28 – President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un meet for the 2019 North Korea–United States Hanoi Summit in Vietnam.
• April 15 – During Holy Week, a major fire engulfs Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, resulting in the roof and main spire collapsing.^[77][78]
• April 28 – Victor Vescovo achieves the deepest dive of any human in history, as he reaches Challenger Deep within the Mariana Trench, at a depth of 10,928 m (35,853 ft).^[84]
• December 18 – President Donald Trump is impeached by the United States House of Representatives.
• December 31 – The first known case of COVID-19 is reported in Wuhan, China; the disease would rapidly proliferate into a global pandemic throughout the next three months.

2020

·         The COVID-19 pandemic, which began spreading late in the prior year, spreads from China to the vast majority of the world's inhabited areas, infecting at least 81 million and killing at least 1.8 million people in its first year.

·         Fears of COVID-19 cause the Dow Jones Industrial Average to fall ten percent in one week, its largest drop in history, triggering the COVID-19 Recession, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

·         January 16 – February 5: Donald Trump is acquitted by the United States Senate in his first impeachment trial.  

·         May 25: The murder of George Floyd sparks protests across the United States and the world.

·         May 30: Crewed spaceflight resumes in the USA. SpaceX becomes the first private company to launch people in space.

·         November 3: The 2020 United States presidential election occurs. Despite the pandemic, early voting and other factors result in the highest voter turnout since 1900, and a record of over 155 million votes cast. Although Joe Biden is declared the winner on November 7, Donald Trump leads an unprecedented effort to prevent official recognition of his defeat, culminating on January 6 the next year.

2021

·         January 6: Supporters of President Donald Trump, gathered after a rally led by him, attack the United States capitol, leading to five deaths.

·         January 13 – February 13: Donald Trump is impeached for a second time following the events of January 6, though he is acquitted again after his trial from February 9–13.

·         April 22: World leaders mark Earth Day by hosting a virtual summit on climate change, during which more ambitious targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions are proposed.

·         August 15: Kabul falls following the 2021 Taliban offensive, as the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan collapses de facto, and the country is governed thereafter by the Taliban as the reinstated Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The War in Afghanistan thus ends after 20 years following the withdrawal of U.S. and coalition troops.

2022

·         February 24: Russia invades Ukraine, escalating the Russo-Ukrainian War, causing a refugee crisis and tens of thousands of deaths on both sides.

·         July 11: James Webb Space Telescope takes Webb's First Deep Field, oldest and highest resolution image of the universe to date.

·         November 16: NASA launches Artemis 1, an unmanned mission to the Moon. Main objective is to test the Orion spacecraft and the SLS rocket.

·         The COVID-19 pandemic infects at least 360 million and kills at least 1.3 million in its third year. The deployment of vaccines worldwide continues from the previous year, and the pandemic does not dominate headlines or the course of the year's events to the same extent it did for the previous two years.

2023

·         For a lengthy summary of events from this year, go to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023

 

December Book Ideas: (these are all available at the Traer Public Library)

 

B CHE CHE           No ordinary dog: my partner from the SEAL Teams to the Bin Laden raid

B CHE CHE           The barefoot lawyer: a blind man’s fight for justice and freedom in China

B GAF GAF          When life gives you pears: the healing power of family, faith, and funny people

B KYL KYL             American wife: love, war, faith, and renewal (by widow of Chris Kyle)

B MIL MIL            Know my name (setting:  2015-2016; California)

 

306.85 STR          Brothers on three: a true story of family, resistance, and hope on a reservation in Montana

362.77 LP ELL     Invisible child: poverty, survival & hope in an American city

363.37 SAN         The Fire Line: The Story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots (2013; Arizona)

364.152 MCE     Gosnell: the untold story of America’s most prolific serial killer

636.75 COT         Olive, Mabel & Me: life and adventures with two very good dogs

796.357 COH      The Chicago Cubs: story of a curse

796.357 GRE      100 things Cubs fans should know & do before they die

796.357 VER       The Cubs way: the Zen of building the best team in baseball and breaking the curse

 

 

F BAC                    Beartown (setting: 2017; small Swedish forest town)

F BRO                    Horse (setting: 1850 Kentucky; 1954 NYC; 2019 Washington, DC)

F CEN                    Things you save in a fire (setting: 2017; Boston, Massachusetts)

F CHA                    Big lies in a small town (setting:  1940 & 2018; North Carolina)

F HON                   Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine (setting: mid-2010s; Glasgow, Scotland)

F LOV                    Can’t look away (setting: 2013 & a decade later; NYC and Connecticut)

F MCC                   Reconstructing Amelia (setting: 2010s; Brooklyn, NY)

F MCM                 The children on the hill (setting: 1978 & 2019; Vermont)

F MON                  The summer of lost and found (setting 2020; South Carolina)

F PAT                     Private games (setting: London Olympic Games, 2012)

F PAT                     The games (setting: Rio De Janeiro Olympic Games, 2016)

F PIC                      Small great things (setting: 2015-2016; Connecticut)

F SER                     In five years (setting 2020 & 2025; New York City)

F SPA                     The wish (setting: 1996 & 2019

F STJ                      The Sun Down motel (setting:  1982 & 2017; Upstate NY)

F VAN                   The Christmas table (setting: 2012 & 1972)

F ZEV                     The storied life of A.J. Fikry (setting: 2013; fictional Alice Island, Massachusetts)

F SEM                    Where’d you go, Bernadette (setting: early 2010s; Seattle, Washington)

NEW F LP ALL     The wind knows my name (setting: 1938 Vienna & 2019 Arizona)

F LP BES                The Caretakers (setting: 2015; Paris)

F LP ERD               The sentence (setting: 2019 & 2020; Minneapolis)

F LP HIL                 28 summers (setting: 1993-2020; Nantucket, Massachusetts)

F LP SHT               Our country friends (setting: 2020; Upstate New York)

F LP WHI              The last night in London (setting: 1939 & 2019; London)

F LP WIL               The lost summers of Newport (setting: 1899, 1958, 2019; Newport, RI)

JF PAL                   Wonder (setting: early 2010s; NYC)

JF TAR                   I survived the Japanese Tsunami, 2011

JF TAR                   I survived the Joplin tornado, 2011

JF TAR                   I survived the California wildfires, 2018

 

November 2000 - 2009Topic Ideas

The 2000s headlines were dominated by 9/11, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina

 

2000

• March 4: The Sony PlayStation 2 releases in Japan. The system became the highest-selling video game console in history.
• July 7: The draft assembly of Human Genome Project is announced at the White House by US President Bill Clinton, Francis Collins, and Craig Venter.
• July 11–25: The 2000 Camp David Summit, aimed at reaching a "final status" agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis, was held between United States president Bill Clinton, Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat.
• October 12: al-Qaeda suicide bombs the USS Cole; 17 sailors are killed.
• November 2: International Space Station begins operations; its first crew, composed of three men, arrives.
• December 12: In Bush v. Gore, the United States Supreme Court declares George W. Bush President of the United States.

 

2001

• January 15: Wikipedia is launched.
• September 11: September 11 attacks: Nineteen Al-Qaeda terrorists hijack four planes, crashing two into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, the third plane into the Pentagon in Washington, DC, while the fourth plane is downed on the outskirts of Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania. 2,996 people, including 2,977 victims and 19 hijackers, die in the attacks.
• October 7 – December 17: The United States invades Afghanistan and topples the Taliban regime, resulting in a long-term war.

2002

• January 1: The Euro enters circulation.
• March 14: SpaceX is founded by Elon Musk.
• November 16: The 2002-2004 SARS outbreak began in Guangdong.
• Steve Fossett becomes the first person to fly solo nonstop around the world.
• Israel starts Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank in response to a wave of Palestinian suicide attacks.
• The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is established.

 

2003

• February 1: Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrates upon reentry, killing all 7 astronauts on board.
• March 19: The United States invades Iraq and ousts Saddam Hussein, triggering worldwide protests and an 8 year war.
• The Human Genome Project is completed.

 

2004

• February 4: Facebook is formed by Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew McCollum, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes.
• November 18 – Massachusetts becomes the first U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage.

 

2005

• February 14: YouTube is founded by Jawed Karim, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen.
• April 9: Wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles.
• July 28: The Provisional Irish Republican Army ends its military campaign in Northern Ireland.
• July 29: Michael E. Brown confirms Eris, a dwarf planet.
• August 29 – 31: Hurricane Katrina kills 1,836 people in the Gulf of Mexico.
• September 29: John Roberts becomes Chief Justice of the United States.
• November 30: Surgeons in France carry out the first human face transplant with Isabelle Dinoire becoming the first person to undergo it.

 

2006

• January 25: Hamas wins the 2006 Palestinian legislative election, gaining political power for the first time.
• March 21: Twitter is launched.
• April 23: Spotify is launched.
• May 5: The first episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse airs on Disney Channel.
• August 24: Pluto is demoted to a dwarf planet.
• September 1: Roblox was released by David Baszucki.
• December 26: Death and state funeral of Gerald Ford.
• December 30: Execution of Saddam Hussein by hanging.
• The International Astronomical Union creates the first formal definition of a planet, and excludes Pluto from the list.
• Nintendo launches the Wii.
• Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was abducted by Hamas.

 

2007

• January 4: Nancy Pelosi becomes the first female Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.
• January 9: Introduction of the iPhone.
• January 25: A civil war escalated in the Gaza Strip throughout June, which resulted in Hamas eventually driving most Fatah-loyal forces from the Strip. In reaction, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh and dissolved the Hamas-ruled parliament.

 

2008

• November 4: Barack Obama is elected to become the first black President of the United States.
• Google Chrome is released.
• The Gaza War begins.
• The Large Hadron Collider is completed as the world's largest and most powerful particle collider.
• Tesla Roadster launched, the first mass production lithium-ion battery electric car.
• Stock markets plunge around the world, signaling the start of the Great Recession.

 

2009

• January 3: The cryptocurrency Bitcoin is launched.
• January 15: US Airways Flight 1549 ditches in the Hudson River in an accident that becomes known as the "Miracle on the Hudson", as all 155 people on board are rescued.
• The Gaza War ends while Gaza blockade continues.
• 2009 swine flu pandemic began in North America.

November Book Ideas: (these are all available at the Traer Public Library)

B BAR TEA                   Saved by her enemy: an Iraqi woman’s journey from the heart of war to the heartland of America

B BEA BEA                   Let’s roll!: Ordinary people, extraordinary courage

B BES BES                    Thank you for my service

B BUS BUS                   Spoken from the heart

B CRA CRA                   The last true story I’ll ever tell: an accidental soldier’s account of the War in Iraq

B CRO RIN                   The red bandanna (setting: NYC; 2001-2002)

B IRV IRV                     The Reaper: autobiography of one of the deadliest special ops snipers

B MOR MOR               The River Queen: a memoir

B ONE ONE                  The operator: firing the shots that killed Osama bin Laden and my years as a SEAL team warrior

B SIL SIL                       Brothers forever: the enduring bond between a Marine and a Navy SEAL that transcended their ultimate sacrifice

B SOL THO                   Soldier girls: the battles of three women at home and at war

B TIL KRA                     Where men win glory: the odyssey of Pat Tillman

B THO TAB                   Sacred acre: the Ed Thomas story

B WAL WAL                 Code name: Johnny Walker: the extraordinary story of the Iraqi who risked everything to fight with the U.S. Navy Seals

B WIS WIS                   Three wise men: a Navy Seal, a Green Beret, and how their Marine brother became a war’s sole survivor

B ZEI EGG                    Zeitoun (setting: New Orleans, 2005)

 

 

363.34 PIC                   Last man down: a firefighter’s story of survival and escape from the World Trade Center

364.152 RUL                Practice to deceive (setting: Whidbey Island, Washington; 2003)

364.16 JOH                  The feather thief: beauty, obsession, and the natural history heist of the century

636.083 ZAL                Funny farm: my unexpected life with 600 rescue animals

636.7 GOR                   Wallace: the underdog who conquered a sport, saved a marriage, and championed pit bulls – one flying disc at a time

 

958.104 STA                Horse soldiers: the extraordinary story of a band of U.S. soldiers who rode to victory in Afghanistan

971.8 DEF                    The day the world came to town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland

977.7 GRE                   Postville, U.S.A.: surviving diversity in small-town America

 

 

NEW F FEE                   Daisy Darker (setting: 2004; an island on the Cornwall coast)

 

F LP GRI                       Gray Mountain (setting: 2008; NYC & Virginia)

F LP HAN                                 Home front (setting: 2005; Iraq and USA)

F LP JAM                      Meant to be: a novel of honor and duty (setting: Maryland and Afghanistan; 2001)

F LP KIN                       Beyond Tuesday morning (setting: NYC; 2004)

F LP POW                    Yellow Birds (setting: 2004-2005; Iraq)

F LP ROS                      Sarah’s key (setting: 1942 and 2002; Paris)

F LP TRO                      This is where I leave you (setting: early 2000s; Upstate New York)

 

F FUR                           Black site: a Delta Force novel (setting: post 9/11; Pakistan)

F GIF                            The lies that bind (setting: NYC; early 2000s)

F HAR                          The center of everything (setting: 2002, Montana)

F KLA                           Redeployment (setting: short stories about returning soldiers)

F MOR                         What Alice forgot (setting: 2008; Sydney, Australia)

F MOY                         Me before you (setting: 2009; England)

F ROS                           Sarah’s key (setting: 1942 and 2002; Paris)

F RYA                           Thin line (setting: 2006; NYC, Paris, Washington DC)

F SHI                            The heirloom garden (2000s & 1940s; Grand Haven, Michigan)

 

 

JF PHI                           Zane and the hurricane: a story of Katrina

JF TAR                          I survived the attacks of September 11, 2001

JF TAR                          I survived Hurricane Katrina, 2005

JF GN TAR                    I survived the attacks of September 11, 2001

JB YEB THO                         Emmanuel’s dream: the true story of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah

J613.69 RUS                Surviving the storm

 

NEW F TN ARA            Enduring freedom (setting: Afghanistan, after 9/11)

F TN GRE                     Looking for Alaska (setting: 2000-2001; Alabama)

 

 

October 1990s - Topic Ideas

The 1990s featured a growing economy, low unemployment, and a national budget surplus. Domestic terrorism, mass shootings, and climate change were also in the news. The World Wide Web (via dial-up connections) and other new technology were other highlights of the decade.

 

1990      

·         April 24: May 20: Launch of the Hubble Space Telescope

·         June 1990: Official demolition of the Berlin Wall began, although protesters had started to tear it down in November 1989.

·         August 2 – 4: Gulf War begins.

·         December 20: Tim Berners-Lee publishes the first web site, which described the World Wide Web project.

 

1991

·         February 28: The Gulf War ends in US withdrawal and a failed uprising.

·         March 3: A video captures the beating of motorist Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers. Four LA police officers are indicted on March 15 for the beating.

·         March 23: Beginning of the Sierra Leone Civil War.

·         December 26: Dissolution of the Soviet Union and independence of 15 former Soviet republics.

1992

·         February 17: A court in Milwaukee, Wisconsin sentences serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer to 15 terms of life in prison. Dahmer is murdered in prison 2 years later.

·         April 6: The Bosnian War begins.

·         Bill Clinton elected 42^nd President of the United States and reelected in 1996. In 1998, he was impeached, then acquitted.

 

1993

·         February 26: 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

·         February 28 – April 19: The Waco siege, a multi-agency law enforcement siege of the compound that belonged to the Seventh-day Adventist religious sect Branch Davidians near Waco, Texas, results in a gunfight, a fire at the compound and 86 deaths.

·         November 30: Release date of Schindler's List.

 

 1994

  January 1: Establishment of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

·         July 5: Amazon founded in Bellevue, Washington by Jeff Bezos.

·         November 5: George Foreman wins the WBA and IBF World Heavyweight Championships by KO'ing Michael Moorer becoming the oldest heavyweight champion in history.

 

1995

·         January 1: Establishment of the World Trade Organization.

·         April 19: American terrorist Timothy McVeigh bombs the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

·         September 19: The Washington Post and The New York Times publish the Unabomber manifesto.

·         October 3: O. J. Simpson is found not guilty of double murder for the deaths of former wife Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman in 1994.

·         October 16: The Million Man March is held in Washington, D.C. The event was conceived by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

 

1996

·         July 5: Dolly the sheep becomes the first successful cloned mammal.

·         July 27: Centennial Olympic Park bombing.

·         September 27: The Taliban government takes control of Afghanistan, creating the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

 

1997

·         April 1: The first episode of Pokémon airs on TV Tokyo.

·         August 29: Netflix is launched.

·         August 31: Diana, Princess of Wales is killed in a car accident in Paris.

·         September 5: Death of Mother Teresa.

·         December 19: Release date of Titanic.

 

1998

·         July 17: Nicholas II of Russia and his family are buried in St. Catherine Chapel, 80 years after he and his family were killed by the Bolsheviks in 1918.

·         September 4: Google is founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

·         December 19: The impeachment of Bill Clinton begins as a result of the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal.

 

1999

·         April 20: The Columbine High School massacre in Colorado, United States, causes 15 deaths.

·         May 1: The first episode of SpongeBob SquarePants airs on Nickelodeon.

·         October 12: World population reaches 6 billion.

·         December 31:  Vladimir Putin becomes the President of Russia.

 

 October Book Ideas: (these are all available at the Traer Public Library)

 

F CAL               The Daring girls of Guernsey (setting: 1940 & 1997; Guernsey, UK)

F CHI                Night school (setting: 1996; international locations - a Jack Reacher novel)

F CHI                The Affair: a Reacher novel (setting: 1997; Mississippi)

F GRE               The girls in the snow (setting: 1995 and present day; Minnesota)

F HAR              What the fireflies knew (setting: 1995; Lansing, Michigan)

F LAR               The People we keep (setting: 1994; Little River, New  York)

F REI                Carrie Soto is back (setting: 1994; California)

F SPA               The wish (setting: 1996 & 2019; North Carolina)

 

F LP DAV          The lions of 5^th Avenue (setting: 1913 and 1993; New York City)

F LP HIL           28 Summers (setting: 1993 and 2020; Nantucket)

F LP NG            Little fires everywhere (setting: 1998; Shaker Heights, Ohio)

 

B BEA BEA       A long way gone: memoirs of a boy soldier (setting: 1990s; Rwanda and Chicago)

B BER BER       She said yes: the unlikely martyrdom of Cassie Bernall (setting: 1990s; Colorado)

B BUS SUN       The quiet man: the indispensable presidency of George H. W. Bush

B FOX FOX       No time like the future: an optimist considers mortality

B MCC KRA      Into the wild (setting: 1991 & 1992; Western states and Alaska)

B NOA NOA     Born a crime: stories from a South African childhood (setting: 1990s; South Africa)

B SCO SCO       Rachel’s tear: the spiritual journey of Columbine martyr Rachel Scott

B STE STE         Just mercy: a story of justice and redemption (setting: late 1980s and 1990s; Alabama)

B WAM WAM  The girl who smiled beads: a story of war and what comes after (setting:

B WAS WAS     SEAL Team Six: memoirs of an elite Navy SEAL sniper

B WOO WOO  The 1997 Masters: my story (setting: Masters golf tournament; Tiger Woods)

NEW B RIC RIC Madly, deeply: the diaries of Alan Rickman (setting: 1993 to his death in 2016)

364.152 EIS     The third rainbow girl: the long life of a double murder in Appalachia (setting: 1980 & 1993; West Virginia)

796.357 MCC  The perfect season: why 1998 was baseball’s greatest year

AUD CD KRA    Into the wild (audiobook version/ setting: 1991 & 1992; Western states and Alaska)

AUD CD OBR   The things they carried (setting: Vietnam War)

 

F TN LOW        The Giver (1994 Newbery winner)

F TN MCL        The lost causes of Bleak Creek (setting: 1992; North Carolina)

F TN ROW       Harry Potter and the sorcerer’s stone (first published in 1997)

 

J956.7 PRI        The Persian Gulf War

JB MCG SAV     Mark McGwire: home run king

JF GRA             Refugee (setting: 1930s Nazi Germany; 1994 Cuba; 2015 Syria)

 

Books popular in the 1990s

F LP GRI           The partner (setting: Mississippi and Brazil)

F GAB              Outlander (setting: 1740s Scotland; 1945 Scotland)

F KIN                The green mile (setting: death row inmates)

F MAR             A game of thrones (#1 in the A Song of Ice and Fire series)

F OBR              The things they carried (setting: Vietnam War)

B MCC MCC    Angela’s ashes (setting: depression era; Limerick, Ireland)

B SCH ALB       Tuesdays with Morrie

F TN CHB         The perks of being a wallflower (teens coming-of-age)

F TN PUL          The golden compass (setting: fantasy fiction)

F TN THO         Concrete Rose (prequel to The Hate U Give)

September 1980s - Topic Ideas

 

In September we move on to the1980s. Technology, materialism, and conservatism were among the highlights of the 1980s.

1980

• May 8: WHO announces the eradication of smallpox.
• May 18: 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Skamania County, state of Washington, leaves approximately 57 deaths and $1 billion of property damage.
• September 22: Beginning of the Iran–Iraq War.
• December 8: Murder of John Lennon.

1981

• January 20:
  • Ronald Reagan is inaugurated as President of the United States.
  • Iran releases the 52 U.S. hostages held in Tehran after 444 days.
• March 30: President Reagan and three others are injured after an assassination attempt.
• May 13: Pope John Paul II assassination attempt.
• July 29: Wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Spencer.
• August 12: IBM Personal Computer released.
• Sandra Day O’Connor became first female Supreme Court Justice

1982

• October 1: Sony releases the world's first commercially sold CD player, the Sony CDP-101
• November 30: Michael Jackson releases his landmark album Thriller, the best-selling album of all time.

1983

• April 18: The Bombing of U.S. Embassy in Beirut results in 63 deaths.
• September 1: Korean Air Lines Flight 007, a scheduled flight from New York City to Seoul via Anchorage, Alaska, is shot down by a Soviet Su-15 interceptor, resulting in 269 fatalities and no survivors. This leads to the declassification of GPS development.
• October 25 – 29: Invasion of Grenada by the United States.

1984

• The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is recognized as the cause of HIV/AIDS, and research on zidovudine and other treatments gets underway.

1985

• March 31: WWE holds their first WrestleMania event.
• September 1: 73 years after the infamous disaster, the wreck of the Titanic is found off the coast of Newfoundland by a joint French–American expedition led by Jean-Louis Michel of IFREMER and Robert Ballard of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
• October 1: Release date of the Macintosh 128K, the first successful mass-market personal computer to feature a graphical user interface, built-in screen, and mouse.
• October 18: North American release date of the Nintendo Entertainment System, a rebranding of Nintendo's Family Computer.
• November 20: Windows 1.0, the first Microsoft Windows operating system, released.

1986

• January 24: First close-up images of the planet Uranus.
• January 28: Challenger breaks apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members aboard.
• March: Return of Halley's Comet.
• November 3: The Iran–Contra affair publicly announced.

1987

• October 19: Stock market crash of 1987.
• December: The antidepressant drug fluoxetine (marketed as Prozac) becomes commercially available.
• World population reaches five billion.

1988

• August 20: End of the Iran–Iraq War.
• November 2: Morris worm, first computer virus distributed through the Internet.
• Construction of the Channel Tunnel begins.

1989

• Revolutions of 1989 bring down Communist and authoritarian regimes around the world.
• March 24: The oil tanker Exxon Valdez spills 10.8 million US gallons of crude oil after striking a reef, causing severe damage to the environment.
• April – June: Tiananmen Square Massacre, in which troops armed with assault rifles and accompanied by tanks fired at student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, resulting in an undisclosed number of deaths (estimated in hundreds to thousands).
• November 9: Fall of the Berlin Wall; the Revolutions of 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Bloc begin in Europe, which leads to the end of the Cold War.
• December 17: The first episode of The Simpsons premieres on Fox.
• December 20: The United States invasion of Panama begins.

September Book Ideas: (these are all available at the Traer Public Library)

JF PAR              A long walk to water (setting: 1985; Sudan)

JF Tar               I survived the eruption of Mount St. Helen’s, 1980

J636.80 MYR  Dewey, the library cat: a true story (setting 1980’s Iowa)

 

F TN BRU         Tell the wolves I’m home (setting: 1987; New York)

F TN CLI           Ready player one (setting: Columbus, Ohio; 2045 – featuring 1980s nostalgia)

F TN ROW       Eleanor & Park (setting: 1986; Omaha, Nebraska)

F TN LOC         Family of liars (setting: 1987; Massachusetts)

 

F ARC               Next in line (setting: 1988; London)

F GAY               What remains of me (setting: 1980, 2010; California)

F MCK              Murder most grave (setting: 1980s; Georgia)

F ORW             Nineteen eighty four (setting: 1984; in a dystopian Oceania)

F REI                Carrie Soto is back (setting: 1989, 1995; USA)

F REI                Malibu rising (setting: 1983; Malibu, California)

F SAN               Buried prey (setting: 1985; Minnesota)

F SHI                The Clover Girls (setting: 1980s; Michigan & a reunion a few decades later)

F SKE                The Paris library (setting: 1939, Paris; 1980s Montana)

F SMI               Golden age (setting: 1987; Iowa, and other locations)

F STJ                The sun down motel (setting: 1982 & 2017; Upstate New York)

 

NEW F CAR      Only the dead (setting: 1980; Washington, DC; Moscow)

NEW F SAG      The only one left (setting: 1929 & 1983; Maine)

 

F LP JOY           The music shop (setting: 1988; England)

F LP MAK         The spice box letters (setting: 1915, Turkey; 1985, Greece)

F LP MCC         The passenger (setting: 1980; Mississippi)

 

B CON CON     In the shadow of the valley (setting: 1980s; Appalachia)

B MOS MOS    Crawl of fame: Julie Moss and the fifteen feet that created an Ironman triathlon legend

B REA WEI       Ronald Reagan

 

027.479 ORL   The library book (setting: based on 1986 Los Angeles Public Library fire)

345.766 GRI    The innocent man: murder and injustice in a small town (setting: 1982; Oklahoma)

364.1 HAM      South Dakota’s Mathis murders: Horror in the Heartland (setting: 1981; South Dakota)

364.152 EIS     The third rainbow girl: the long life of a double murder in Appalachia (setting: 1980, 1993; West Virginia)

636.809

       LP MYR     Dewey: the small-town library cat who touched the world (setting: 1980s; Iowa) 

796.323 FEI     The legends club: Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Valvano, and an epic college basketball rivalry (setting: 1980s North Carolina)

975.8 BER        Midnight in the garden of good and evil: a Savannah story (setting: 1980s; Savannah, Georgia)

 

August 1970s - Topic Ideas

In August we move on to the 1970s.This was a decade full of wars, riots, coups, abductions, and assassinations in Vietnam, Nigeria, Jordan, Canada, Poland, Bangladesh, Northern Ireland, Sudan, Israel, Philippines, Chile, Cyprus, Ethiopia, Argentina, Cambodia, Lebanon, Angola, Indonesia, South Africa, Germany, Uganda, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. The decade also included a massacre at the Munich Olympics, and the Watergate scandal and resignation of President Richard M. Nixon. Space exploration, computer technology advances, the Roe v. Wade decision, and the beginning of the EPA were significant events. Other highlights include:

1970

• January 22: Maiden flight of the Boeing 747.
• February 18: The Chicago Seven are found not guilty of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
• April 10: Break-up of the Beatles.
• April 11: Apollo 13 (Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, Jack Swigert) is launched toward the Moon.
• July 7: The Environmental Protection Agency established.
• October 5: The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) began broadcasting

1971

• April 20: National Public Radio (NPR) airs its first broadcast.
• July 5: The 26th Amendment to the United States Constitution, formally certified by President Richard Nixon, lowers the voting age from 21 to 18.
• November 15: Intel releases the world's first microprocessor, the Intel 4004.
• Greenpeace founded.
• The Pentagon Papers published by the New York Times, proved that the US Government was lying about the Vietnam War.

1972

• January 30: Northern Ireland's Bloody Sunday.
• February 21 – 28: U.S. President Richard M. Nixon makes an unprecedented 8-day visit to the People's Republic of China and meets with Mao Zedong.
• May 26: Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev sign the SALT I treaty in Moscow, as well as the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and other agreements.
• June 17: Watergate break-in attempt
• September 5 – 6: The Munich massacre, perpetrated by the Black September terrorist organization and aimed at the Israeli Olympic team, results in 17 total deaths.
• November 29: The arcade game Pong, the first commercially successful video game, is released.

 1973

• January 22: The Supreme Court of the United States decides Roe v. Wade.
• May 14: The first space station, Skylab, is launched.
• October: 1973 oil crisis.
• Vice President Spiro Agnew resigns over tax evasion & bribery charges
• The House of Representatives begin an impeachment process over President Nixon’s involvement in the Watergate scandal.
• 1973–1975 recession begins.

1974

• March 29:
  • First close-up images of Mercury by Mariner 10.
  • The Terracotta Army of Qin Shi Huang is discovered at Xi'an, China.
• August 8:  Richard M. Nixon resigned the presidency. Later was pardoned by Gerald Ford.
• November 24: Discovery of "Lucy" (Australopithecus afarensis) in Tanzania's Olduvai Gorge.

1975

• April 4: Microsoft founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico by Bill Gates and Paul Allen.
• April 30: The Fall of Saigon ends the Vietnam War.
• August 1: The Helsinki Accords, which officially recognize Europe's national borders and respect for human rights, are signed in Finland.
• The Killing Fields murders begin. The genocide of over 1.7 million Cambodians.

1976

• April 1: Steve Wozniak invents the Apple I and Steve Jobs then convinces Wozniak to sell the system, giving birth to Apple Computer.
• First outbreak of the Ebola virus in Zaire.

1977

• March 27: The Tenerife disaster in the Canary Islands, with 583 fatalities, marks the deadliest accident in aviation history.
• May 25: Star Wars is released and quickly becomes the highest-grossing film of all-time.
• August 16: Death of Elvis Presley.
• August 20: Voyager 2 launched by NASA.
• September 5: Voyager 1 launched by NASA.
• September 11: Release date of the Atari 2600 video game console in North America.
• October 26: The last wild case of smallpox is eradicated by the WHO.
• Introduction of the first mass-produced personal computers.

1978

• June 22: Discovery of Pluto's moon Charon.
• July: Louise Brown is the first child successfully born after her mother received in vitro fertilization treatment.
• November 18: Jim Jones's New religious movement, the Peoples Temple, ends in the organized mass killing and suicide of 920 people in Jonestown.
• November 27: San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk are assassinated by former Supervisor Dan White.
• Invention of artificial insulin.

1979

• March 28: The Three Mile Island nuclear accident, a partial meltdown of reactor number 2 of Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station (TMI-2) in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, near Harrisburg, and subsequent radiation leak.
• June: Arrival of Pope John Paul II in Poland, eventually sparking the Solidarity movement.
• November 4: The Iran hostage crisis begins.
• The 1979 oil crisis becomes the second one since 1973.

August Book Ideas: (these are all available at the Traer Public Library)

JF BLU                        Are you There God? It’s me, Margaret (setting: 1970; New Jersey)
JF MCD                      Julie tells her story (setting: 1976: California)
JF GN HOL                 Swing it, Sunny (setting: 1970s)
JB PET GER              The man who walked between the towers (setting: 1974; New York City)
J 364.15 KIM              Disappearance of skyjacker D.B. Cooper (setting: 1971; Northwest USA)
J 629.45 HAM             Saving Apollo 13
J 791.43 DK                Star Wars made easy
 
NEW F HAW               The Villa (setting: 1974; Italy)
NEW F LAN                All that is mine I carry with me (setting: 1976)
NEW F MAR               Looking for Jane (setting: 1971, 1980 & 2017; Toronto)
F LP GAR                   On Tall Pine Lake (setting: 1970s; Arkansas)
F LP HAN                   The Great alone (setting: 1974; Alaska)
 
F IF THO                     Until the harvest (setting: 1970s; West Virginia)
F IF WHI                     The Choice (setting: 1974; Georgia)
 
F HAN                         The great alone (setting: 1974; Alaska)
F HOS                         The kite runner (setting: early 1970s; Kabul, Afghanistan)
F LAN                          Best to laugh (setting: 1970s; Twin Cities & Hollywood)
F LOG                         Broker (setting: 1979; Minnesota)
F LOU                         The quarry girls (setting: 1977; Minnesota)
F MCM                        The children on the hill (setting: 1978 & 2019; Vermont)
F MON                        Beach house memories (setting: 1974; South Carolina)
F OSB                         The Girls (setting: 1970s)
F PAU                         The lost daughter (setting: 1918-1930s & 1973; Russia and Australia)
F PER                         Take my hand (setting: 1973; Alabama)
F ST                            The book of cold cases (setting: 1977 & 2017; Oregon)
F WAL                         The silver star (setting: 1970s; California & Virginia)
 
NEW 973.92 KRO      The White House Plumbers: the seven weeks that led to Watergate and doomed Nixon’s presidency
289.9 GUI                   The road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple
363.73 OBR                Paradise Falls: the true story of an environmental catastrophe (setting: 1970s; Love Canal, Niagra Falls, NY)
364.152 CEP              Furious hours: murder, fraud, and the last trial of Harper Lee (True crime - setting: 1970s; Alabama)
364.152 HAM             Gitchie Girl (True crime – setting: 1973, Lyon County, Iowa)
973.924 WOO            The last of the president’s men
977.7 DAV                  Sarah’s seasons: an Amish diary & conversation (setting: 1976-1977; Kalona, Iowa)
 
B DAV DAV                The world according to Fannie Davis: my mother’s life in the Detroit numbers (setting: 1970s; Detroit)
B GAB GAB                A wrestling life: the inspiring stories of Dan Gable
B LOU LOU                Born on the bayou: a memoir (setting: 1970s; Louisiana)
B STI STI                    Downstairs at the White House

 

 

July 1960s - Topic Ideas

1960s  - Civil Rights Movement, Hippies, Woodstock & the Swinging Sixties, Space race, British Invasion, assassinations of President Kennedy, Robert Kennedy & Martin Luther King , escalation of American involvement in Vietnam, Americans step foot on the moon, beginnings of the Internet and Sesame Street.

1960       May 9: The birth control pill becomes commercially available.

                September 18 – 25: The first edition of the Summer Paralympic Games is hosted in Rome.

November 8: The 1960 United States presidential election marks the first televised debates between presidential candidates.

 

1961       January 20: John F. Kennedy is inaugurated as President of the United States.

April 12: Yuri Gagarin, flying the Vostok 1 spacecraft as part of the Vostok program, becomes the first human in space.

April 17 – 20: Bay of Pigs Invasion by Cuban exiles ends in failure

May 25: In an address to Congress, John F. Kennedy declares the United States' objective of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" by the end of the decade. This would be in fact achieved by the Apollo Project, despite several challenges and much doubt.

The Great Leap Forward ends in China after the deaths of roughly 20–45 million people.

 

1962       July 2: Walmart founded in Rogers, Arkansas by Sam Walton.

                October 16 – 29: The Cuban Missile Crisis nearly causes nuclear war.

 

1963       March 22: The Beatles' first record, Please Please Me, and the beginnings of the British Invasion.

August 28: Martin Luther King Jr. delivers "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

November 22: Assassination of John F. Kennedy. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson assumes office as President of the United States.

 

1964       July 2: Civil Rights Act abolishes segregation in the USA.

August 2: The Gulf of Tonkin incident led to the escalation of U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War.

November 28: NASA launches the Mariner 4 space probe from Cape Kennedy toward Mars to take television pictures of that planet in July 1965.

1965       February 21: Assassination of Malcolm X.

                March 17: The Voting Rights Act of 1965, inspired by the Selma to Montgomery marches.

 

1966       October 21: The Aberfan disaster, the catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip (pile of waste coal mining material) in Aberfan, Wales results in 144 deaths.

Joseph Weizenbaum, a German computer scientist at MIT, completes ELIZA, the first ever chatbot.

 

1967       May 26: The Beatles release their landmark album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Mid-year: Summer of Love, in which as many as 100,000 people, mostly young people sporting hippie fashions of dress and behavior, converged in San Francisco's neighborhood of Haight-Ashbury.

 

1968       January – September: The Tet Offensive occurs in South Vietnam.

March 16: My Lai massacre, a mass murder and rape of unarmed South Vietnamese civilians by U.S. troops in the Vietnam War.            

April 4: Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. during the Poor People's Campaign.

June 5: Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy during the Poor People's Campaign.

September - National Guard deployed to Waterloo, Iowa, after riots.

 

1969       June 28 – July 3: The Stonewall riots in New York City instigate the gay rights movement.

July 20: Apollo 11 Moon landing, in which Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first two humans on the moon.

August: The Woodstock festival in Bethel, New York, attracts an audience of more than 400,000.

October 29: Creation of Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), the earliest incarnation of the Internet.

November 10: Sesame Street premieres its debut episode.

 

July Book Ideas: (these are all available at the Traer Public Library)

J394.261 DEA                     Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

J629.45 WIL                        Spacebusters:

J959.7 WOR                        Tet Offensive

JB BRI BRI                            Through my eyes

JB KIN BOL                           M.L.K. – journey of a king

JB KIN BUL                           Free at last: the story of Martin Luther King, Jr.

JF TAR                                 I survived the attack of the grizzlies, 1967

 

F TN HIN                              The outsiders (setting: 1965; Tulsa, Oklahoma)

 

F CAR                                    Whistling past the graveyard (setting: 1963; Mississippi and Tennessee)

F CHA                                    The last house on the street (setting: 1965 and 2010; North Carolina)

F EDW                                   This I know (setting: 1960s; Midwest)

F EVE                                     The education of Dixie Dupree (setting: 1969; Alabama)

F FAD                                    The sunshine girls (setting: 1967 & 2019; Iowa)

F FUL                                     Bitter orange (setting: 1969; England)

F GAR                                    Lessons in chemistry (setting: Early 1960s, California)

F HIL                                      The bookshop of the broken hearted (setting: 1960s; rural Australia)

F HIL                                      Summer of ’69 (setting: 1969, Nantucket)

F HOF                                    Saving CeeCee Honeycutt (setting: 1967; Georgia)

F KID                                      The secret life of bees (setting: 1964, South Carolina)

F KIN                                     11/22/63: a novel (setting: early 1960s, 2011; Maine & Texas)

F KRU                                    Ordinary grace (setting: 1961, Minnesota)

F LUE                                     Missing Isaac (setting: 1960s; Alabama)

F STO                                     The help (setting: 1962, Jackson, Mississippi)

 

F LP MCB                             Deacon King Kong (setting: 1969; Brooklyn, NY)

F LP WHI                              The nickel boys (setting: early 1960s; Tallahassee, Florida)

 

B DON DON                        The Greatest beer run ever: a Memoir of friendship, loyalty, and war (setting: 1967; Vietnam)

B KIM KIM                           A girl named Zippy (setting: 1965-1970s; Indiana)

327.127 REE                       A brotherhood of spies: the U-2 and the CIA’s secret war

364.1 CAP                           In cold blood: a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences

629.450 KOP                      The astronaut wives club: a true story (setting: 1960s; Houston)

959.7 BUR                           The Vietnam War: an intimate history

959.7 SMI                            Covert warrior: fighting the CIA’s secret war in Southeast Asia and China, 1965-1967

959.704 BOW                    Huê 1968: a turning point of the American War in Vietnam

973.92 BRO                         Boom: voices of the sixties: personal reflections on the 60’s and today

973.922 DOB                      One minute to midnight:  Kenney, Khrushchev, and Castro on the brink of nuclear war

973.922 KEN                      Thirteen days: memoir of the Cuban missile crisis

973.922 ORE                      Killing Kennedy: the end of Camelot

 

June 1950s - Topic Ideas

With the Great Depression just a memory and the post WWII economy strong, the 1950s began a time of rapid change in the US. Families were growing fast, giving rise to the baby boomer generation, and began flocking to the suburbs in search of an “idyllic” life amid increasing fears of the atomic bomb. The Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Civil Rights movement were major news events of the 1950s, but here are a few other noteworthy events:

1950    August 25: Bertie the Brain, one of the first computer games, is released.

North Korea invades South Korea in June.  September–November: UN forces reclaim Seoul and invade North Korea.

Senator McCarthy’s campaign against alleged communists during the Red Scare which lasted from 1950-1954.

1951    September 8: The Treaty of San Francisco ends the Occupation of Japan and formally  concludes hostilities between Japan and the US.

1952    February 6: Queen Elizabeth II becomes Monarch of the Commonwealth realms.

      Development of the first effective polio vaccine by Jonas Salk.

1953    April 25: Discovery of the three-dimensional structure of DNA.

      Elvis Presley's musical career is launched.

The first color television is produced.

1954    May 17: The Supreme Court of the United States decides Brown v. Board of Education,   ordering an end to racial segregation in public schools.

1955    April 12: The Salk polio vaccine having passed large-scale trials earlier in the United States, receives full approval by the Food and Drug Administration.

            The Vietnam War began in November.

            Disneyland opened.   

1957    October 4: Launch of Sputnik 1 and the beginning of the Space Age.

First prescription of the combined oral contraceptive pill.

Beginning of the Asian flu in China, leading to a worldwide pandemic that lasts until the following year.

1958    July 29: NASA formed.

      Invention of the optical disc and the cassette tape.

1959    February 3: Rock and roll musicians Ritchie Valens, Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper die in  a plane crash.

            First documented AIDS cases.

 

June Book Ideas: (these are all available at the Traer Public Library)

 

B BRA BRA                   Across Many Mountains (setting: 1950 Tibet)

B BRY BRY                   The life and times of the thunderbolt kid (setting: 1950s, Iowa)

B CHA CHA                  The girl with no name: the incredible story of a child raised by monkeys (setting: 1950s, Colombia)

B PHE PHE                   “Be Home By Dark”: How I earned my Dime Store MBA (setting: 1950s small town Michigan)

B ROW ROW               About my mother: true stories of a horse-crazy daughter and her baseball obsessed mother (setting: 1950s, Baltimore, MD)

616 SKL                                    The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks (setting: 1950s, Maryland and Virginia)

636.1 LP LET                The ride of her life: the true story of a woman, her horse, and their last-chance journey across America (setting: 1956-1956, across the US)

951.904 LP SID            On desperate ground: the Marines at the reservoir, the Korean War’s greatest battle

951.1904 BRA             The Scariest Place in the World: a marine returns to North Korea (memoir: 1950s Korean War)

951.904 DRU               The last stand of Fox Company: a true story of U.S. Marines in combat

951.904 HUT               Sgt. Reckless: America’s War (setting: Korean War – about a horse)

NEW 951.9 MAK         Devotion: an epic story of heroism, friendship, and sacrifice (Setting: Korean War)

F BEN                           Her hidden genius (setting: 1950s, Paris & London)

F GOO                         The Home for Unwanted Girls (setting 1950s Quebec)

F JEN                            Bloomsbury girls (setting: 1950, London)

F JOY                           Miss Benson’s beetle (setting: 1950, London & South Pacific)

F JOS                            The henna artist (setting: 1950s, India)

F OWE                         Where the crawdads sing (setting: 1952 & 1969, North Carolina)

F RIC                            The book woman’s daughter (setting: 1953, Kentucky)

F ROS                           White collar girl (setting: 1955, Chicago)

F SHA                           The frozen hours: a novel of the Korean War (setting: 1950, Korea)

F TAY                           The brighter the light (setting: 1950, North Carolina)

F VAN                          The good dream (setting: 1950s, Tennessee)

F WIN                          The orphans of Mersea House (setting: 1957, England)

F LP BEN                      The swans of Fifth Avenue (setting: 1950s, New York City)

F LP DEF                      An American summer (setting: 1955, Baltimore, MD)

F LP ERD                      The night watchman (setting: 1953, North Dakota & Minnesota)

F LP HUG                     By her own design: a novel of Ann Lowe, fashion designer to the social register (setting: 1953, New York & 1918, Tampa)

F LP LEE                       Go set a watchman (setting: 1950s, Alabama)

F LP OWE                    Where the crawdads sing (setting: 1952 & 1969, North Carolina)

F LP SCH                      The daughters of Erietown (setting: begins in 1957, Ohio)

F LP SEP                       Out of the easy (setting: 1950, New Orleans, Louisiana)

F LP TOW                    The Lincoln Highway (setting: 1954, multiple states)

JF KAD                         kira-kira (setting 1950s Iowa)

JF KEE                          Nancy Drew: The Clue of the Black Keys (published 1951)

JF KEE                          Nancy Drew: The Haunted Showboat (published 1957)

JF KEE                          Nancy Drew: Mystery at the Ski Jump (published 1952)

JF LIN                           Pippi Longstocking (published 1950)

J951.9 RIC                   Korea 1950: Pusan to Chosin

EASY SEU                     Horton and the Kwuggerbug and More Lost Stories (stories originally published in early 1950s)

 

May 1940s - Topic Ideas

The 1940s is the decade when Depression turns into prosperity, when disillusionment gives way to optimism, when want yields to plenty — and when domestic peace is shattered by world war. The 1940s were defined by World War II, the Holocaust, atomic bombs, and the beginning of the Cold War. Women were needed in the workforce to replace men who went to war, and wartime production pulled the U.S. out of the Great Depression. We have no shortage of WW2 books, both non-fiction and historical fiction.  World War II domonated the decade, but there are a few other noteworthy events that happened in the 1940's:

 

1940    May 15: McDonald's founded in San Bernardino, California.

1941    June–December: Hitler commences the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.

      December 7: The Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor leads to the USA joining World War II.

1942    The Manhattan Project begins.

            July 5 – Anne Frank goes into hiding

1943    January 15: The Pentagon is completed.

            January 18: Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

February 2: Battle of Stalingrad ends with over two million casualties and the retreat of the German Army.

1944    June 1: First operational electronic computer, Colossus, comes online.

            June 6: D-Day when over 150,000 allied troops landed on beaches in Normandy, France

 

1945    April 12: President Franklin D. Roosevelt died in office, making his vice president, Harry S. Truman the new president

May:  End of World War II in Europe.

      The Holocaust ends after ~12 million deaths, including 6 million Jews.

August: The US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, ending the war in the Pacific

October 8: The microwave cooking oven is patented, with the one of the first prototypes placed at a Boston restaurant for testing.

October 24:  United Nations charter signed by 50 nations.

1947    April 15: Jackie Robinson becomes the first baseball player of color.

            Polaroid cameras invented

            June 27:  Dead Sea Scrolls discovered.

1948    June 24: Berlin Blockade begins.

1949    June 8: George Orwell publishes Nineteen Eighty-Four.

 

May Book Ideas: (these are all available at the Traer Public Library)

 

F BEL                      The Paris architect (setting: 1942, Paris)

F CHA                    The stolen marriage (setting: 1944, North Carolina)

F DOE                    All the light we cannot see (setting: WWII France & Germany)

F FOR                    Hotel on the corner of bitter and sweet (setting: 1940s and 1980s, Seattle)

F FUR                    A hero of France (setting: 1941, France)

F HAR                    The book of lost names (setting: WWII France, 2005 Germany)

F HAR                    The forest of vanishing stars (setting: World War II, Eastern Europe)

F HEA                    Girls of flight city: inspired by true events a novel of WWII, the Royal Air Force, and Texas

F KEL                      Lilac girls (setting: WWII; New York, Paris, Germany, Poland)

F KIE                      The baker’s secret (setting: 1944, Normandy, France)

F MEA                   Dragonfly (setting: World War II, Paris)

F MYE                    The tobacco wives (setting: 1946, North Carolina)

F NEM                   Suite française (setting: 1940, France)

F ORW                  Nineteen eighty four (1984 of the future; London & near-future Oceania)

F QUI                     The rose code (setting: 1940 & 1947, England)  

F RIM                    The things we cannot say (setting: 1942 & 2019, Poland)

F ROB                    The gown: a novel of the royal wedding (setting: 1947, London; 2016, Toronto)

F ROS                    Sarah’s key (setting: 1942, 2002 – Paris)

F SAL                     Angels of the resistance (setting: 1940, Netherlands)

F SHA                    The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (setting: 1946, England & The Channel Islands)

F WEI                     Code name Verity (setting: 1943, France)

F WIL                     The golden hour (setting: 1941 Bahamas)

 

NEW F HLA          The book spy (setting: WWII, New York City & Portugal)

NEW F REA          Go as a river (setting: 1940s, Colorado)

NEW F SAL          Angels of the resistance (setting: WWII, Netherlands)

NEW F SPE          Beyond that, the sea (setting: 1940s London and Boston)

F LP GIL                City of girls (setting: 1940s, New York City)

F IF GRE                Things we didn’t say (setting: WWII, Minnesota)

F LP CAM             The Paris dressmaker (setting: WWII, Paris)

F LP FUR               Under occupation (setting: 1942, Paris)

F LP JEN                The kommandant’s girl (setting: WWII, Poland)

 

B AIR BRU            The race of aces: WWII’s elite airmen and the epic battle to become the masters of the  sky

B FOU OLS           Madame Fourcade’s secret war: the daring young woman who led France’s largest spy network against Hitler

B GOI PUR           A woman of no importance: the untold story of the American spy who helped win WWII

B SMI PAP           Inferno: the true story of a B-17 gunner’s heroism and the bloodiest military campaign in aviation history

B ZAM HIL           Unbroken: a World War II story of survival, resilience, and redemption

 

NEW 823 KEN    Schindler’s list

341.6                     Enemies within: Iowa POWs in Nazi Germany

940.53 BRA         Three ordinary girls: the remarkable story of three Dutch teenagers who became spies,  saboteurs, Nazi assassins – and WWII heroes

940.53 EDS          The monuments men: Allied heroes, Nazi thieves, and the greatest treasure hunt in history

940.53 SUL          The Betrayal of Anne Frank: a cold case investigation

940.53 WIN        1944: FDR and the year that changed history

940.54 AMB       Band of brothers: E company, 506^th Regiment, 101^st Airborne: from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s nest

940.54 BRO         The greatest generation

940.54 FEL           Ghost riders: when US and German soldiers fought together to save the world’s most beautiful horses in the last days of World War II

940.54 LOR         The miracle of Dunkirk: the true story of Operation Dynamo

940.54 MUN      Code girls: the untold story of the American women code breakers of World War II

940.54 SAT          We band of brothers: the Sullivans and World War II

940.54 SHA         World War II day by day

 

F TN HES              Girl in the Blue Coat (setting: WWII, Netherlands)

F TN SEP               Salt to the sea (setting: WWII: East Prussia)

 

JF LOW                 Number the stars (setting: 1943, Denmark)

JF GN PAL            White bird (setting: World War II, France)

JF GN TAR            I survived the Nazi invasion, 1944             

J940.54 HUE       Voices of World War II: stories from the front line

 

 

 

April - 1930’s – Topic Ideas

 

The 1930s saw the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl which was the worst drought in American history. While in Europe there was the rise of Hitler and Nazi power in Germany, and the beginnings of World War II.

 

1930    February 18: Clyde Tombaugh discovers Pluto.

 

July 13–30: The first FIFA World Cup is hosted in Uruguay.

 

1931    March 3: "The Star-Spangled Banner" is adopted as the United States's national anthem.

 

            May 1: Empire State Building completed.

 

June: Floods in China kill up to 2.5 million people.

 

1932    March 1: Lindbergh baby kidnapping.

 

The neutron is discovered by James Chadwick.

 

1933    Franklin D. Roosevelt inaugurated to fourth term as President of the United States.

 

December 5: Prohibition in the United States is abolished.

 

1934    May 23: Bonnie and Clyde are shot to death in a police ambush.

 

August 2: With the death of President Hindenburg, Hitler declares himself Führer of Germany.

 

1935    September 15: Enactment of the anti-Semitic Nuremberg racial laws.

 

1936    December 11: After a reign shorter than one year, Edward VIII abdicates and hands the throne to his brother, George VI.

 

The Hoover Dam is completed.

 

George Nissen and Larry Griswold build the first modern trampoline.

 

1937    May 6: German zeppelin Hindenburg crashes in Lakehurst, New Jersey, ending the airship era.

 

            September 21: J. R. R. Tolkien publishes The Hobbit.

 

            December 21: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is the first feature-length animated movie released.

 

1938    April 18: DC Comics hero Superman has its first appearance.

 

            November 9 – 10: Kristallnacht, a pogrom, killing over 90 Jews in Germany while destroying 267 synagogues, and over 7,000 Jewish businesses.

 

      December: Time Magazine declares Adolf Hitler as Man of the Year.

 

1939    August 25: Release date of MGM's The Wizard of Oz.

 

September 1–October: Nazi invasion of Poland triggers World War II in Europe. Soviet  invasion of Poland begins 16 days later.

 

September 3: Britain and France declare war on Germany; World War II begins.

 

            December 15: Release date of Gone with the Wind.

 

 

 April Book Ideas: (these are all available at the Traer Public Library)

 

 

 

B NEW NEW              Diamonds at dinner: my life as a lady’s maid in a 1930s stately home

(setting: 1930s, England)

B ROO JEN                Franklin Delano Roosevelt

 

NEW B SPI SPI          Maus I & II : a survivor’s tale (1930s Poland, and 1970s, New York City)

 

305.23 BRO               The Orphans of Davenport: eugenics, the Great Depression, and the war   

                                    over children’s intelligence

                       

798.4 HIL                    Seabiscuit: an American legend (setting: 1938, USA)

 

979.12 BRO                The boys in the boat: nine Americans and their epic quest for gold at the

1936 Berlin Olympics

 

929.9 SED                  Star-spangled banner: our nation & its flag

 

943.08 LP LAR           In the garden of beasts: love, terror, and an American family in Hitler’s

Berlin

 

978 EGA                     The worst hard time: the untold story of those who survived the great

American dust bowl

 

 

JF BAU                       The Wizard of Oz

 

JF TAR                        I survived the Hindenburg disaster, 1937

 

J811 KAL                    The Star-spangled banner

 

March - 1920’s – Topic Ideas

 

1920s    From the 1920s-1950s Georgia Tann ran a black-market baby business at the Tennessee  Children’s Home Society in Memphis. More than 5000 children (many who weren’t actually orphans) were trafficked.

1920       January 17: Prohibition in the United States begins.

                May 21: The Mexican Revolution ends.

                19^th Amendment gave women the right to vote.

                National Football League is formed.

1921       January 25: Premiere of the science-fiction play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), in which the word "robot" was first used.

                May 31-June 1:  Tulsa race riot.

July 29: Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of the Nazi Party as hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic begins.

1922       November 4: Howard Carter discovers Tutankhamen's tomb.

1923       October 16: The Walt Disney Company is founded.

1924       January 25 – February 5: The first edition of the Winter Olympic Games is hosted in Chamonix,  France.

May 10: The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation founded under J. Edgar Hoover.

The first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is held.

1925       July 18: Hitler's Mein Kampf is published.

                Nellie Tayloe Ross elected governor of Wyoming and is first female governor in the USA.

1926       June 19: National Broadcasting Company (NBC) founded in New York City as first nationwide radio broadcasting system.

1927      May 18: The Bath School disaster, a series of violent attacks by Andrew Kehoe results in 45 deaths in Michigan, USA.

May 20 – 21: Charles Lindbergh performs the first nonstop flight from New York City to  Paris; becomes a world hero.

October 4: Mount Rushmore construction begins in South Dakota, U.S.

1928       September 3: Accidental rediscovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming.

                November 18: Steamboat Willie, is the first appearance of Mickey Mouse.

                Bubble gum is invented.

1929       February 14: St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago

May 16: The first Academy Awards are presented.

October 24 – 29: Wall Street crash of 1929 and the beginning of the Great Depression.

 

March Book Ideas: (these are all available at the Traer Public Library)

F BRO                    Blind tiger (setting: 1920s, Texas)

F WIL                     A Certain age (setting: 1920s, New York City)

F ZEL                      The Dressmakers of Prospect Heights (setting:  1924, Brooklyn; late 19^th C Russia; 1910s New Orleans)

F LP TOW             A Gentleman in Moscow (setting: 1922, Russia)

F SCH                     Last call at the Nightingale (setting: 1924, New York City)

F STE                      The Light between oceans  (setting: 1920s, Australia)

F ARM                   The Light of Luna Park (setting: 1926, New York City; 1951)

F LP DAV              The Magnolia palace (setting:  1920s & current day, New York City)

New F PAU         The Manhattan Girls: a novel of Dorothy Parker and her friends (setting: 1921, New York City)

F ROB                    Moonlight over Paris (setting:  1924, Paris)

F BEN                    The Mystery of Mrs. Christie (setting: 1926, England)

F RIN                     The Other typist  (setting: 1923, New York City)

F MCL                    The Paris wife (setting: 1920s, Paris)

F SKE                     The Second life of Mirielle West (setting: 1920s, Hollywood, and Louisiana leper colony)

F KLA                     Villa America (setting: 1920s, France)

----

B LIN KES             The Flight of the century: Charles Lindbergh & the rise of American aviation

B LIN LIN              The Spirit of St. Louis (Charles Lindbergh’s account of his transatlantic crossing in 1927)

362.73 CHR         Before and after: the incredible real-life stories of orphans who survived the Tennessee  Children’s Home Society (setting: 1920s-1950s, Tennessee and USA)

363.17 MOO      The Radium Girls (setting: America, 1917 through the 1920s)

364.132 MCC     Prohibition in Eastern Iowa (setting: 1920—1933, Iowa)

630.9773 MEY   Days on the Family Farm: from the Golden Age through the Great Depression (setting: 1901-1930s, Illinois)

918.1 GRA           The Lost city of Z: a tale of deadly obsession in the Amazon (setting: 1925, South America)

919.89 SHA         The stowaway: a young man’s extraordinary adventure to Antarctica (setting, 1928, New York, Antarctica)

932 SAN               Egyptology: search for the tomb of Osiris: being the journal of Miss Emily Sands, November 1926 (setting: 1926, Egypt)

973.91 BRY          One summer: America, 1927

976.60 GRA        Killers of the Flower Moon: the Osage murders and the birth of the FBI (setting: 1920s Oklahoma)

----

J384 FAN             The Disney book: a celebration of the World of Disney

J384.8 PAS          The Story of Disney

J796.357 NEL     We Are the ship: the story of Negro League baseball (setting: 1920s, USA)

J978.3 BRO         Mount Rushmore

 

 

 

F TN LOW        The Giver (1994 Newbery winner)

F TN MCL        The lost causes of Bleak Creek (setting: 1992; North Carolina)

F TN ROW       Harry Potter and the sorcerer’s stone (first published in 1997)

 

 

You have a lot of leeway with your interpretation of a book relating to the decade(s)! Adults and children can participate! Remember, if you find a book you’d like to read that we don’t have in our library, we can get it from another library for free, or look on Bridges/Libby for an e-book or audiobook

 

You can pick up a log sheet at the circulation desk to keep track of your books each month (or if you are not in town we can email you the info). We will also have a list of topics and book ideas, or just ask and we can help you find something! We will be giving away gifts to those who complete the challenge! We hope you have FUN with this challenge as Traer celebrates our 150 years!

 

 

 

 

 

F LET                     Finding Dorothy  (fictional account behind the making of the movie “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”)

F MEI                     The nature of fragile things  (setting: 1906, San Francisco)

F GAY                    The girl who came home: a novel of the Titanic  (setting: 1912 & 1987, Titanic survivor)

F SHR                    Stella Bain: a novel  (setting: 1914-1918, London & America)

New F LP CHI         Switchboard soldiers  (setting: 1917, France)

F LP STE                A good woman  (1912-1918, New York City; France)

F MCP                    The Seamstress of New Orleans  (1900; New Orleans)

F MOY                    The girl you left behind  (setting: 1916, Paris; 2006)

F MAS                    The winter soldier  (setting:  1914, Vienna)

F DAL                     Little Souls  (setting: 1918, Colorado)

F MEI                      As bright as heaven  (setting: 1918, Philadelphia; Spanish Flu)

F WIS                     The orphan collector  (setting: 1918, Philadelphia)

F DON                    The pull of the stars  (setting: 1918, Ireland)

TN F ALE               The kitchen boy  (setting:  1918, Russia)

F SMI                      A tree grows in Brooklyn  (setting: 1900-1918, Brooklyn, New York)

F LP DAV               The magnolia palace  (setting:  1919 and 1966, New York City)

F LP DAV               The lions of fifth avenue  (setting: 1913 & 1993, New York City)

F QUI                     The Alice Network  (setting: 1915 and 1947, France)

F BEN                    The personal librarian  (setting:  1905, New York City)

F TUR                    Light changes everything  (setting: 1907, Arizona Territory & Illinois)

F LP WAL              The cold millions  (setting: 1909, Spokane, WA)

F GAY                    A memory of violets: a novel of London’s flower sellers (setting: 1912 & 1876, England)

F LP WIL                Band of sisters  (setting: 1917, France)

F LP KEL               Lost Roses (setting: 1914, St. Petersberg, Russia; Paris; USA)

B STE STE             Letters of a Woman Homesteader (setting: 1909-1913, Wyoming)

B ROO AUC           Theodore Roosevelt

B WRI MCC            The Wright Brothers

362.12   LOR         A night to remember  (setting: 1912, England, and Atlantic Ocean aboard the Titanic)

363.12 MAR          Titanic  (setting: 1912)

363.12 BRY          The Titanic disaster: as reported in the British national press April-July 1912

363.17   MOO       The radium girls (setting: 1917 through 1920s, USA)

910 MOW             Sinking of the Titanic: eyewitness accounts (1912)

917.3 GUI             The Vagabonds: the story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison’s ten-year road trip

940.4 LAR            Dead wake: the last crossing of the Lusitania  (setting:  1915, aboard the Lusitania)

 940.47 MOO       No man’s land: the trailblazing women who ran Britain’s most extraordinary military

        hospital during World War I

947.08 RAP         The Romanov sisters: the lost lives of the daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra

AUD CD 918.1 MIL   The River of doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s darkest journey (setting: 1912, Brazil)

J 551.55                World’s Worst Hurricanes

JF TAR                  The Galveston hurricane, 1900 (I Survived #21)

JF BUR                  The Secret Garden  (setting: 1910, Yorkshire, England)

JF BAU                  The Wizard of OZ: Great Illustrated Classics

JB WRI SOB          The Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk

JF TAR                   I survived the San Francisco earthquake, 1906

J940.4 HEI             Voices of World War I: stories from the trenches