Radar and the Raft: A True Story About a Scientific Marvel, the Lives it Saved, and the World it Changed

This science-history nonfiction adventure mash-up will be on every middle grade reader's radar.

Who knew that an improbable rescue during WWII would be facilitated by scientific discoveries in the 18th century?

Expert researcher and educator Jeff Lantos makes the history-science connection between batteries and radar and one oceanic adventure in this engaging middle-grade escapade told in two intertwining storylines.

Readers are first invited to follow scientific discoveries in the 1700s that eventually lead to the creation of radar, and are then immersed in a world where World War II rages. German U-boats sink ships, and the ship just hit has an American mom and her two young kids aboard. Now Ethel, Robert, and Mary Bell are on a raft with fourteen other people, floating in the ocean and hoping for rescue.

Lantos expertly weaves radar's story of discovery with the Bell family's harrowing journey, bringing readers on an exciting fast-paced adventure through history.

♦ "A rare and exhilarating mix of hard science and seagoing terror."
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Jeff Lantos was a fifth-grade teacher in Pacific Palisades, California, where he often wrote history-based musicals for his students to perform. He still often works with schoolkids and history-based productions. A UCLA study showed that his students' retention of history is higher than their peers. He was nominated for a 2015 Excellence in Theatre Education Award from the Tony Awards and Carnegie Mellon University. He holds a degree from Brown University and has worked producing musicals on Broadway.

Alan Marks began his career illustrating for magazines and newspapers in England. His first children's book Storm, written by Kevin Crossley Holland, won the Carnegie Medal. He is also the illustrator of the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honor Book A Mother’s Journey, as well as Behold the Beautiful Dung Beetle, Planet Zoo, The Spirit of the Forest, and more. Alan lives in an old house in the Kent countryside with his wife and two daughters. www.marksonpaper.co.uk