This Means War! (review)

Cold War expansion of the Lathrop Air Force base means an infusion of military brats in the adjacent town of Wisdom Hill and a reconfiguration of longstanding elementary-school friendships. Fifth-grader Juliet's best friend Lowell, no longer in the same classroom, has taken up with twins Tommy and Mike, who definitely do not play with girls; Juliet herself, completely distressed, pals up with Patsy, a newcomer with a flair for stirring up drama. Linda and Annette latch on to the girls in hope of meeting guys, while an older bully, Bruce, pushes his way in with the boys because nobody else will have anything to do with him. Thus the stage is set for a showdown when Patsy decides the boys' "no girls" rule is unfair, and she proposes a series of competitions to prove gender equality. It starts off innocently enough, with footraces and baseball, but soon escalates into the danger zone, and minor injuries give way to petty theft and finally arson and a brush with death. The children's face-off reflects the 1962 Soviet/American stand-off in Cuba, an episode that fills the children in this military community with both bravado and dread and raises the tone of the novel well above the standard "boys are idiots; girls have cooties" plotting. Wittlinger has a keen eye for 'tween age dynamics, with the likes of Juliet and Lowell comfortable in playmate mode, Annette and Mike ready to pair off, and Patsy and Bruce knocking around in any milieu that will accept them. Decades may have elapsed, but boys vs. girls and nation vs. nation never goes out of fashion.