Spooked!: How a Radio Broadcast and The War of the Worlds Sparked the 1938 Invasion of America

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In 1938, the most popular entertainment for Americans was the radio. Families would crowd around the radio to listen to stories and music in the evenings. On Sunday evening, October 30 of that year, the Mercury Theater broadcast an adaptation of H.fdG. Wells’s War of the Worlds, modernized to the near future. Little did producers Orson Welles and John Houseman realize, people would be so fooled by the show’s imitation of breaking news reports interrupting what seemed to be a show of dance music that listeners would believe the country was under attack by monsters from Mars. Panicked callers begged police for protection and for telephone operators to connect them to loved ones to say goodbye.

Author Gail Jarrow has done a masterful job of telling this true story in a way that will grab young readers and not let them go until the very last page. The fascinating text is supported with great photographs and illustrations and powerful graphics that will make this computer generation want to read this book. Jarrow always finds such fascinating historical people and events to write about and bring alive for young audiences, but this might well be her best. Do not miss this book!


Reviewed By:

Author Gail Jarrow
Star Count /5
Format Hard
Page Count 144 pages
Publisher Calkins Creek
Publish Date 2018-Aug-07
ISBN 9781629797762
Bookshop.org Buy this Book
Issue September 2018
Category Tweens
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