This is a meticulous history of some of the Cold War's most notorious spies told in a spell-binding narrative. It starts with a hollow coin and how it ends up -- mistakenly -- in a paperboy's hands. It's eventually traced back to its creator, Soviet spy Rudolf Abel, who ends up in prison and the subject, much later in the book, of a spy exchange between the two Cold War super powers, the USSR and USA.
It does a great job of setting the scene with the death of Stalin and Khrushchev taking over in the USSR. It's Soviet history most kids won't get in middle school, so it's a great companion to grades 6-8 Social Studies Common Core standards that focus more on US history of this time period.
It continues through the US presidents Eisenhower to Kennedy and how some think Khrushchev manufactured the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the interim, it examines but doesn't put quite as much focus on the building of the Berlin Wall, several attempts to smuggle people out of East Berlin, and the subsequent escalation of the Cold War to the point of almost starting another war.
It's an awesome history, on my favorite subject, Cold War spies and intrigue, and as such a great title to add to a classroom shelf.
Teachers Note: The publisher offers a Discussion Guide with 10 questions.
Also for teachers looking for shorter-format (about 10-15 pages each) non-fiction spy case histories, I recommend Marc Favreau's Spies: The Secret Showdown between America and Russia, which contains 10 short case histories of infamous Cold War spies, in my post, Paired Texts: WWII and Cold War Espionage.
For teachers looking to pair this with middle grade Cold War historical fiction, I strongly recommend my lesson plans in Teaching the Cold War 1, Teaching the Cold War 2 and Teaching the Cold War 3. They accompany the historical fiction books, The Enemy: Detroit, 1954, by Sara Holbrook, Suspect Red, by L.M. Elliott, and Spy Runner, by Eugene Yelchin. It would also pair well with the historical fiction A Night Divided, by Jennifer A. Nielsen, as the story centers around an escape under the Berlin Wall.
