The sixties are a decade children can hear. A sprinter from Tennessee who had worn a leg brace won three gold medals in Rome. Four young men from Liverpool landed at an airport in New York and, within a year, every transistor radio in America was playing them. A man orbited the Earth and came home for lunch. Thousands of Cuban children were put on planes alone. A president was shot on a Friday afternoon and the country watched it on television, which was itself brand new. And on a July night in 1969, six hundred million people — roughly one in five human beings then alive — stayed up to watch two men in white suits climb down a ladder onto the moon. It was ten years of things happening at once, which is exactly why writers keep sending children into it.
Bookroo’s collection of 124 books about the 1960s runs from board-book moon landings to Newbery Medal novels, and our editors picked thirteen that carry the decade best. The shortlist walks the ten years roughly in order — 1960 in Rome and New Orleans, 1961 in Havana, 1962 in small-town Pennsylvania, 1963 in Washington and Birmingham, 1964 on the radio, 1967 in Glacier, 1969 on the moon — 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 sixties.
A girl who could not walk without a brace at eight years old became the fastest woman on earth at twenty.
Ruby Bridges’ own account of the year she was six, and walked to first grade past a crowd, with federal marshals on either side.
Three brothers are put on a plane out of Havana in 1961 and left to sort out Miami on their own.
The summer of 1962, a grounded twelve-year-old, an arthritic obituary writer, and an unusual number of dead old ladies.
A boy throws a brick at a junk man in 1963 and is sentenced to spend his Saturdays helping him collect trash.
The Weird Watsons drive from Flint, Michigan to Birmingham, Alabama in the summer of 1963.
A fourteen-year-old adopts a stray tomcat and spends a year walking the five boroughs with him.
Four teenagers from Liverpool, one skiffle band, and the seven years that rearranged popular music.
Glacier National Park, August 1967, the night two grizzlies attacked in two separate campgrounds.
Seventh grade, 1967. Every Wednesday afternoon, Holling Hoodhood is alone with the teacher who has decided he will read Shakespeare.
Three sisters are sent to Oakland in the summer of 1968 to meet the mother who left them.
Four mathematicians at NASA who worked out the numbers that put Americans into orbit and onto the moon.
July 1969, the Saturn V on the pad at dawn, and four days of quiet until a man steps off the ladder.
Illustrated true stories and sixties-set fiction — rockets, records, first days of school, front-porch summers, and the songs everybody knew. Ages 4–9.
Discover the power of a dream that changed history.
A young girl integrates a white elementary school in New Orleans in the 1960s.
Children march for civil rights, challenging segregation in 1963 Birmingham.
A carousel ride becomes a pivotal moment in the Civil Rights movement.
Experience the Apollo 11 moon landing through a young enthusiast's eyes.
A boy's Saturdays with his grandmother reveal the magic of simple joys.
An astronaut's artistic journey captures the moon's beauty beyond the lens.
A mule's journey reveals a pivotal civil rights story.
A young girl witnesses a pivotal stand for equality, sparking hope for change.
A six-year-old girl bravely integrates a school, changing history forever.
A child's dream leads to a historic moonwalk.
A boy discovers his grandpa's fight against discrimination in a bread factory.
Adventures, mysteries, biographies, and historical fiction set between 1960 and 1969, from first chapter books to full-length middle grade. Ages 7–12.
A young girl finds her voice amidst the echoes of Jim Crow and Civil Rights awakening.
A boy faces school cruelty, family illness, and looming war, seeking miracles to save his world.
Four teens navigate life's crossroads, seeking identity and connection.
A boy's journey from Cuba to the U.S. tests his courage and hope for family reunion.
A soldier and his dog must trust each other to survive Vietnam.
A young girl faces discrimination and must find her voice amidst tragedy.
A young girl must choose between her dreams and joining a pivotal workers' rights protest.
A girl and a snow leopard face danger in a mystical forest.
A troubled teen finds unexpected hope in art and friendship amidst family turmoil.
The Berlin Wall was built to separate East and West Berlin during the Cold War, and its construction and impact are explored in this book.
This book tells the story of the Vietnam War from the perspective of the Vietnamese people and the US soldiers who fought in it.
A farm becomes a legendary music festival, defining a generation.
