White Sands, Red Menace - Hardcover

Klages, Ellen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670062359 ISBN 13: 9780670062355

Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers, 2008

Synopsis

It is 1946, and the events of The Green Glass Sea have changed the world?and Dewey Kerrigan?s life. She?s now living near the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico with the Gordon family. Dr. Gordon is working on rockets that will someday go to the moon; Mrs. Gordon is working on stopping the Bomb. Meanwhile, Dewey and her ?sister,? Suze, share secrets, art, and science as they adjust to high school in an isolated desert town. Then, like a different kind of dropped bomb, Dewey?s long-lost mother, Rita Gallucci, reappears in their lives. And she wants to take her daughter away.

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 5–9—In this sequel to The Green Glass Sea (Viking, 2006), Dewey and the Gordon family have relocated from Los Alamos to Alamogordo, NM, now that World War II is over, because Mr. Gordon has been offered a job to develop rockets for the U.S. government. Dewey and Suze Gordon are comfortable with one another, almost like sisters, and begin eighth grade together at a new school, where they are required to take home economics instead of shop. Suze's mother has had to put her academic career as a chemist on hold and is struggling with her growing estrangement from her husband, based primarily on their different positions about the atomic bomb. But Dewey relishes the close bond that she is developing with Mrs. Gordon, only to have it disrupted by the arrival of her birth mother, who left Dewey and her dad when she was two. Superbly written and rich in detail, Klages's novel once again nails the uncertainty that many Americans experienced after the truths of Hiroshima began to surface. History is intricately woven into the story of these memorable characters, and issues such as self-identity, family, and racism are explored. The desert heat is palpable, the immense expanses are easily visualized, and the roles that women and minorities played in the late 1940s are painfully evident. The only problem is minor—the threat in this volume is not "red" communism, but rather ex-Nazis and the atomic research itself, so the title might mislead readers. Nonetheless, this book is every bit as powerful as its predecessor.—Melissa Moore, Union University Library, Jackson, TN
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Klages’ The Green Glass Sea (2006) won the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction, and in this gripping sequel, set just after World War II, science, mechanics, and politics continue to play a big role in the teen friendship story. Dewey’s atomic-scientist dad has died in a traffic accident, and she has moved in with her friend Suze’s family near Los Alamos. Suze’s dad is driven by his work in the new frantic race to build a rocket (“The first man in space mustn’t be a Russian”), and he fights bitterly with his peacenik wife, Terry, about Hiroshima and the radiation nightmare. There is sometimes too much local detail, but the groundbreaking science is part of daily life for the smart techno-teens, and the adult characters are as compelling as the kids. As Klages said in an interview in the November 2007 issue of Book Links magazine, people are excited about future technology, “and others are afraid that there won’t be a future.” Along with these global issues, Klages’ compelling story explores personal relationships and what it means to be a family. Grades 5-8. --Hazel Rochman

Edition details

• Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0670062359
• ISBN 13: 9780670062355
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352