The Green Glass Sea - Hardcover

Klages, Ellen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670061344 ISBN 13: 9780670061341

Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers, 2006

Synopsis

It is 1943, and 11-year-old Dewey Kerrigan is traveling west on a train to live with her scientist father—but no one, not her father nor the military guardians who accompany her, will tell her exactly where he is. When she reaches Los Alamos, New Mexico, she learns why: he's working on a top secret government program. Over the next few years, Dewey gets to know eminent scientists, starts tinkering with her own mechanical projects, becomes friends with a budding artist who is as much of a misfit as she is—and, all the while, has no idea how the Manhattan Project is about to change the world. This book's fresh prose and fascinating subject are like nothing you've read before.

About this title

About the Author

Ellen Klages was born a in Columbus, Ohio. She graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in Philosophy.

“It teaches you to ask questions and think logically, which are useful skills for just about any job.” she says. “But when I looked in the Want Ads under P, no philosophers. I’ve been a pinball mechanic, a photographer, and done paste-up for a printer.

“I’ve lived in San Francisco most of my adult life. The city wears its past in layers, glimpses of other eras visible on every street. I love to look through old newspapers and photos, trying to piece together its stories.

“I was at the Exploratorium, a hands-on science museum, working as proofreader, when they were looking for a science writer to do a children’s science activity book. No science background, but I convinced my boss that in order to ‘translate’ from a PhD physicist, I had to ask lots of questions, just like a curious kid. I got the job.

“My desk was covered with baking soda, Elmer’s glue, balloons, soap bubbles, and dozens of other common objects that became experiments, and the office echoed with the ‘Science-at-Home’ team saying, ‘Wow! Look at this!’

“My co-writer, Pat Murphy, a science-fiction author, encouraged me to write stories of my own. I’ve now sold more than a dozen. “Basement Magic,” a fairy tale set at the beginning of the Space Age, won the Nebula Award in 2005.

The Green Glass Sea is not science fiction, but it is fiction about science. And history and curiosity.”

Ellen Klages lives in San Francisco. The Green Glass Sea is her first novel.

Reviews

Grade 5-8–Two girls spend a year in Los Alamos as their parents work on the secret gadget that will end World War II. Dewey is a mechanically minded 10-year-old who gets along fine with the scientists at the site, but is teased by girls her own age. When her mathematician father is called away, she moves in with Suze, who initially detests her new roommate. The two draw closer, though, and their growing friendship is neatly set against the tenseness of the Los Alamos compound as the project nears completion. Clear prose brings readers right into the unusual atmosphere of the secretive scientific community, seen through the eyes of the kids and their families. Dewey is an especially engaging character, plunging on with her mechanical projects and ignoring any questions about gender roles. Occasional shifts into first person highlight the protagonist's most emotional moments, including her journey to the site and her reaction to her father's unexpected death. After the atomic bomb test succeeds, ethical concerns of both youngsters and adults intensify as the characters learn how it is ultimately used. Many readers will know as little about the true nature of the project as the girls do, so the gradual revelation of facts is especially effective, while those who already know about Los Alamos's historical significance will experience the story in a different, but equally powerful, way.–Steven Engelfried, Beaverton City Library, OR
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

In November 1943, 10-year-old budding inventor Dewey Kerrigan sets off on a cross-country train ride to be with her father, who is engaged in "war work." She is busy designing a radio when a fellow passenger named Dick Feynman offers to help her. Feynman's presence in this finely wrought first novel is the first clue that Dewey is headed for Los Alamos. The mystery and tension surrounding "war work" and what Dewey knows only as "the gadget" trickles down to the kids living in the Los Alamos compound, who often do without adult supervision. Although disliked by her girl classmates, "Screwy Dewey" enjoys Los Alamos. There are lots of people to talk with about radios (including "Oppie"), and she has the wonderful opportunity to dig through the nearby dump for discarded science stuff. However, when Dewey's father leaves for Washington, she is left to fend off the biggest bully in Los Alamos. The novel occasionally gets mired down in detail, but the characters are exceptionally well drawn, and the compelling, unusual setting makes a great tie-in for history classes. John Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Treasure at the Dump

Dewey took a final bite of her apple and, without taking her eyes off her book, put the core into the brown paper sack on the ground next to her. She was reading a biography, the life of Faraday, and she was just coming to the exciting part where he figured out about electricity and magnetism. She leaned contentedly against Papa’s shoulder and turned the page.

Today they had chosen to sit against the west wall of the commissary for their picnic lunch. It offered a little bit of shade, they could look out at the Pond, and it was three minutes from Papa’s office, which meant they could spend almost the whole hour reading together.

“Dews?” Papa said a few minutes later. “Remember the other night when we were talking about how much math and music are related?”

Dewey nodded.

“Well, there was a quote I couldn’t quite recall, and I just found it. Listen.” He began to read, very slowly. “ ‘Music is the hidden arithmetic of the soul, which does not know that it deals with numbers. Music is the pleasure the human mind experiences from counting without being aware that it is counting.’ That’s exactly what I was talking about.”

“Who said it?” Dewey asked.

“Leibniz. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. He was an interesting guy, a mathematician and a philosopher and a musician to boot. You’d like him.”

“Can I borrow that book when you’re done?”

“I don’t think you’d get far,” he laughed. He turned and showed her his book, bound in very old, brown leather that was flaking off in places. The page it was open to was covered in an odd, heavy black type.

“It’s in German,” Dewey said, surprised. That explained why he had read so slowly. He’d been translating. “So is Leibniz a Nazi?”

“Hardly. He died more than two hundred years ago, long before there were any Nazis.” He shook his head. “Don’t make the mistake of throwing out a whole culture just because some madmen speak the same language. Remember, Beethoven was German. And Bach, and—”

The rest of his sentence was interrupted by the shrill siren from the Tech Area. He sighed. “Time to go back to my own numbers.” He closed his book, then leaned over and kissed Dewey on the top of her head. “What’re you up to this afternoon?” He stood up, brushed the crumbs from his sandwich off his lap into the dirt, then brushed the dirt itself off the back of his pants.

Dewey squinted up at him. “I think I’ll sit here and read for a while. A couple more chapters anyway. Then I’m going to the dump. Some of the labs are moving into the Gamma Building, now that it’s done, and people always throw out good stuff when they move.”

He smiled. “Looking for anything in particular?”

“I don’t know yet. I need some bigger gears and some knobs and dials. And some ball bearings,” she added after a short pause. “I’ll show you at dinner if I find anything really special.”

“Deal. We’re just analyzing data this afternoon, so I may actually get out at 5:30. If you get home before me, put the casserole in the oven and we can eat around seven.” He tucked his book under his arm.

“Okay.” Dewey watched him walk around the corner of the building, then turned back to her book.

Edition details

• Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0670061344
• ISBN 13: 9780670061341
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336