America's Youngest Ambassador: The Cold War Story of Samantha Smith's Lasting Message of Peace

In 1982, amid the nuclear paranoia that engulfed the US and the Soviet Union, Samantha Smith, a fifth grader from Manchester, Maine, wrote a letter to the Kremlin asking the Soviet leader if he was going to start a war. When Pravda, the biggest Soviet newspaper, published her letter—and Samantha received an unprecedented invitation to visit the Soviet Union —her family embarked on a historic journey that helped transform the hearts and minds of two nations on a collision course.

Today, a nu...