The seventies are the decade kids assume nothing happened in, and they are wrong by a mile. A man in a business suit jumped out of the back of a passenger jet over Washington with two hundred thousand dollars and was never seen again. A teenager in the Bronx hooked up two turntables at his sister’s back-to-school party and accidentally invented hip-hop. A Frenchman strung a cable between the newly built Twin Towers and walked out on it at dawn. A Japanese mountaineer was pulled unconscious from an avalanche and kept climbing to the top of Everest. A fourteen-year-old Romanian scored a 10 on the uneven bars and the Olympic scoreboard, built only for single digits, flashed 1.00 because nobody had thought to plan for her. Add a moon-bound spacecraft that exploded and came home anyway, four feet of snow that shut down New England for a week, and a movie about a galaxy far, far away that emptied every neighborhood into a ticket line, and you have ten years that hand children’s writers one impossible-but-true story after another.
Bookroo’s collection of 61 books about the 1970s runs from picture-book true stories to Newbery Medal novels, and our editors picked fifteen that carry the decade best. The shortlist walks the ten years in order — 1970 in Mexico City, 1971 in a small Texas town and over the Washington woods, 1973 in the Bronx, 1974 above lower Manhattan, 1975 in Saigon and on Everest, 1976 in Montreal and Florida, 1977 at the movies, 1978 under the snow, 1979 in New York and over the Berlin Wall — and mixes true stories with the era’s best invented ones. Below the picks, the age shelves sort the rest into illustrated true stories for younger readers and chapter books and novels for readers ready to spend a few hundred pages in the seventies.
Jack and Annie land in Mexico City for the 1970 World Cup final, where Pelé is about to play the best game of his life.
Summer 1971 in Antler, Texas, where nothing happens until a trailer pulls in carrying the fattest boy in the world.
On the night before Thanksgiving 1971, a man calling himself Dan Cooper jumped out of a Boeing 727 with $200,000 and vanished.
August 1973, a rec room on Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx, two turntables, and the moment hip-hop starts.
In August 1974 Philippe Petit stretched a cable between the newly built Twin Towers and stepped out onto it.
Saigon falls in April 1975, and ten-year-old Hà spends the rest of the year learning Alabama.
In May 1975 Junko Tabei survived an avalanche at 21,000 feet, then kept going to the summit of Everest.
Montreal, 1976: a fourteen-year-old from Onești scores a perfect 10, and the scoreboard cannot display it.
Sunny gets shipped to her grandfather's Florida retirement village for the summer of 1976, where the average age is eighty.
The summer of 1977, when Mark is the shortest kid in seventh grade and Star Wars opens down the street.
February 1978: four feet of snow falls on Rhode Island, and a boy in a snorkel parka goes for help.
A hearing aid the size of a lunchbox, a new school, and a girl who decides the whole thing makes her a superhero.
New York, 1979: Miranda starts finding notes from someone who already knows what is going to happen.
Zomorod renames herself Cindy, moves to Newport Beach in 1978, and then the news out of Iran gets complicated.
September 1979: two families sew a hot-air balloon in secret and try to cross the border out of East Germany at night.
Illustrated true stories and seventies-set fiction — high wires, block parties, blizzards, record-breaking gymnasts, and the inventions and rescues that made the news. Ages 4–9.
Discover the journey of a musical prodigy who changed the world with his voice and vision.
Discover the mystery of monarch butterflies' epic journey and the teamwork that solved it.
A boy's tragic death during a protest sparks change in apartheid-era South Africa.
A tennis legend challenges gender norms and inspires future athletes.
A mathematician's calculations save Apollo 13. Discover her untold story.
A blind musician's song transcends Earth, echoing human loneliness in space.
A river fire ignites a movement, sparking Earth Day's birth.
A young boy's list of habits leads him to fight for equality and change.
Discover the creation of the iconic Rainbow Flag and its journey to becoming a symbol of pride.
Adventures, mysteries, graphic memoirs, biographies, and historical fiction set between 1970 and 1979, from first chapter books to full-length middle grade. Ages 7–12.
Two friends face a regime's ultimatum, testing their bond and redefining home.
A young girl finds her voice amidst the echoes of Jim Crow and Civil Rights awakening.
In 1970 Alabama, Lu's running talent challenges racial divides and tests her friendships.
A boy confronts family secrets and racial tensions in 1972 Houston.
Two boys from different worlds face sixth grade's challenges, forging an unexpected bond amidst rivalry and change.
A teacher becomes a trailblazing politician, championing gay rights against all odds.
A perilous journey to find a new home tests courage and hope.
A summer job at the pool leads to unexpected independence and a budding romance.
A boy investigates mysterious lizard musicians appearing on TV, leading to a surreal adventure.
Sunny navigates middle school chaos and family changes, determined to stay upbeat.
A young reporter navigates seventh-grade drama and uncovers truths during the Watergate scandal.
An explosion in space leaves astronauts fighting to survive and return to Earth.
