Pearl by Sherri L. Smith

This graphic novel opens in 1886 with the story of Amy's great-grandmother who was an ama, or a pearl diver on the shores of Honshu in Japan. Amy hear many stories about her sosobo especially one where she found a large, perfectly round pearl, the size of her fist. She was able to hold her breath for ten minutes and dive down a quarter of a mile to extract pearls from oysters. The day she found the large pearl, she was seen by a fisherman and they eventually married. She gave birth Amy's grandfather and he in turn had a daughter and a son who became Amy's father. Her father moved to Hawai'i and married her mother, whose family had lived in Hawai'i for four generations.

In 1941, war raged on in half of the world. With her best friend, Amy was able to live her life and deal with the racial discrimination she encountered. When went to the movie theatre, and they spent time together. But then her parents received a letter from family in Japan that her Sosobo was ill. Because her mother had just had a new baby, Henry, they couldn't travel so Amy would have to make the trip to Japan alone. She had never been away from home, nor had she ever visited Japan.

Upon arriving in Japan by ship, Amy found it "familiar, yet strange". She was met by her Uncle Michi, Aunt Hina, and her cousin, Ken. The trip to her uncle's farm just outside of Hiroshima was made by oxen and cart and was long. Amy found life very different in Japan, but the food was somewhat like home. Gradually Amy came to understand her Sosobo's thick accent. 

With the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, Amy finds herself in a country at war with her own country, the United States. It was at this time that Amy's sosobo told her how she fled her home in the Ryukyu Kingdom on Okinawa when the Japanese invaded in 1879. Although it was difficult, she managed to make a new life on the main island. She tells Amy she must somehow survive.

With Japan now at war, Amy's cousin Ken enlisted and her Aunt Hina reminded her that she is Japanese. But Amy was American. Eventually  war touched Amy's life when it was discovered that she spoke English. She was forced out of her uncle's farm and taken to Hiroshima, a military city, along with other Nisei, or American Japanese. It would be Amy's job to translate American radio communications. But who was Amy loyal to, Japan or America? And how would she survive caught between two cultures?

Discussion

Pearl is a beautifully illustrated graphic novel that explores the issues of identity and belonging. Young Amy is tasked with spending three months in Japan to help her father's family who are dealing with the declining health of their elderly sosobo, or great-grandmother. Amy initially adapts to life in Japan but then finds herself caught up in World War II after the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor. This change frightens Amy but her sosobo explains that change in life is inevitable and that surviving it is important. 

In Pearl, Amy's Sosobo tells her great-granddaughter how she too faced frightening change and invasion when she was uprooted by the invasion of the Japanese to her island of Okinawa in 1879. Although not much information is provided, this was a real historical event. Okinawa is the smallest of the five large Japanese islands in the Japanese archipelago. It was part of the Ryukyu kingdom which was founded in 4129 by King Sho Hashi through the unification of three smaller kingdoms. Ryukyu had substantial trade with China, Japan and other Asian countries. However, in 1609, Japan invaded Ryukyu and 1879 it became Okinawa. The king was forced to relocate to Tokyo and the monarchy abolished. At this time, the Japanese attempted to abolish Ryujyuan language, religion and other cultural practices. 

For Amy's sosobo, she faced the challenges of change and made her own life on the mainland. Amy found herself facing the same challenge, with the war between America and Japan. Immediately after Pearl Harbor, Amy was recruited and forced to work as a "Monitor Girl", listening in on American broadcasts and forced to translate them, Amy had hoped that the Japanese would come to understand Americans. However, Amy's perspective changed when she learned from her Uncle Michi that America had imprisoned Japanese Americans, including her parents, in prison camps and that her baby brother, Henry had died in such a camp. Her patriotic feelings towards America vanished and she became determined to help Japan. Living in Hiroshima, Amy found herself terribly injured in the atomic bombing of the city. With terrible burns and radiation illness, all she could remember was the message of her sosobo, the importance of surviving.. 

To that end, Amy's determination and resiliency is shown by her recovery from her wounds, and her helping the Americans in the post-war period, during the occupation of Japan. After being refused permission several times to return to the United States, Amy was finally able to do so in 1952. What she found was much more than she had ever anticipated. Just as she had, her family had also survived and thrived. Despite the loss of Henry, her parents now had three more children, and a new home. Amy came to realize that her identity was more than just American and Japanese: she was a survivor, a daughter, a sister, and a friend. She also came to understand that life was a gift not to be wasted.

While Pearl is a beautifully illustrated graphic novel, the sparse storytelling doesn't capture the full extent of the emotions Amy had to be experiencing: the fear and uncertainty travelling to Japan alone to meet family she didn't know and live in a culture that was very different from America, the anger at learning her parents and brother were imprisoned and the death of little Henry, the inner conflict of being both American and Japanese, the joy of returning home and seeing her parents happy and thriving. 

Nevertheless, the message does come across in this exquisite graphic novel: change is inevitable and needs to be embraced. It is survivable and often leads to opportunities and experiences that were never considered. 

Book Details:

Pearl by Sherri L. Smith
New York:  Graphix    2024

133 pp. 

The Woman Who Split The Atom: The Life of Lise Meitner by Marissa Moss

When Lise Meitner was a young girl she loved math, often sleeping with a math book underneath her pillow. Her father who was from Czechoslovakia, and her mother who was from Russia, valued education for all of their eight children, including Lise. They lived in Austria where it was easier for Jews to study, work and live. However, higher education was off limits for girls in the late nineteenth century in Europe. Their presence in university was deemed distracting. In 1897, the laws were changed allowing women to enter university provided they passed the high school exit exam. This would be difficult for most young women at this time because they would not have attended high school. 

Lise and her older sister Gisela studied and passed the exam; Gisela went on to medical school while Lise went on to study physics at the University of Vienna in 1901. Most of Lise's classes where taught by Ludwig Boltzmann whose daughter was also studying physics. It was Boltzmann who believed in the existence of atoms (something controversial at the time), who presented to Lise the idea that physics was about seeking out the truth, and he urged her to go to graduate school.

Lise Meitner became the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Vienna. Because no one wanted to work with a woman, she built her own lab equipment and began studying the absorption of alpha and beta radiation in different metals. In 1907, at the age of twenty-eight, Lise published her first article on measuring the scattering of alpha particles. After meeting Max Planck, who was studying quantum physics, Lise decided to move to Berlin. The University of Berlin was intimidating to Lise because it had no women students or professors. There, in 1907, she met Dr. Otto Hahn who was working at the Chemistry Institute. She was given a lab room in the basement but it had no equipment so Lise made her own equipment. Lise and Otto Hahn began working together and eventually both were given a new modern lab when the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute (KWI) opened. 

Lise met Albert Einstein in 1909 when they both lectured at a conference in Austria. Einstein's lectures were on relativity and how mass is a form of energy as defined by the equation E=mc². Einstein explained later that the inside of an atom held enormous energy. He, like Lise and others believed this energy inside the nucleus of an atom could not be extracted or harnessed. In 1913, Einstein came to work at KWI and Lise was now teaching at the University of Berlin.

During World War I under the direction of Fritz Haher, Otto Hahn helped develop chemical weapons for Germany, gassing Allied troops with chlorine gas and killing thousands of men and maiming many more. Haber "weaponized chlorine" and also developed a means for Germany to make fertilizer and fertilizer-based explosives as well. For Lise, the use of science in warfare was deeply upsetting.

The post-war period in Germany was one of soaring inflation and tough times. Lise continued her research into beta and gamma radiation, studying the "decay chain of radioactive substances". She continued to publish scientific papers with Otto Hahn. Together they showed that decay could be used to date the Earth and Sun. It was an exciting time in radioactive research: the cyclotron was being developed to study particle behaviour, and Lise was using a cloud chamber to map the movement of particles.

In 1920, Lise became a professor at the University of Berlin. At this time she began a close friendship with Niels Bohr and his wife Margrethe after he came to lecture in Berlin and she in Copenhagen. In 1924 Lise won the Prussian Academy of Science's Silver Liebniz Medal. In 1925 she won the Vienna Academy of Science's Ignaz Lieben Prize and in 1929 she and Otto Hahn were nominated for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. However, the 1920's saw the rise of anti-Semitism in Germany, especially against Jewish scientists like Einstein. There was a belief that there was a pure Aryan science and that the science of Jewish scientists was fraudulent.

January,1933 saw Hitler become the Chancellor of the Third Reich. It became illegal for Jews to work in government, universities and research institutions, so Einstein resigned from the KWI and the Berlin Academy of Sciences and remained in the United States. Many Jewish German scientists quit, leaving the country for Britain and the United States, but Lise Meitner was not one of them. Although she couldn't teach or attend meetings, she still had her lab. 

By 1938, Lise was the only remaining Jewish scientist at KWI and she was finally asked to leave by Otto Hahn who was being threatened with the loss of government funding. Lise lost her KWI apartment and eventually found herself trapped in Germany. With the help of an entire network of scientists, Lise fled Germany, through the efforts of Dutch physicists Dirk Coster and Adriaan Fokker and her editor Paul Rosbaud, to the Netherlands. She eventually moved to Stockholm, Sweden.

In  the mid-1930's,  scientists were bombarding elements with neutrons and creating what were thought to be new heavier isotopes which they called transuranics. After not having collaborated with Lise for many years, Otto Hahn and his new partner Fritz Straussman sought her out to help them understand their results. In 1938, when Lise met Otto in Copenhagen, they discussed the strange results of his recent experiments. Instead of seeing new heavier transuranics, Otto was creating lighter elements. He simply did not understand what was happening on an atomic level and he needed Lise's help. In 1939, he wrote up and published a paper with his results, concluding that all transuranics research needed to be reinterpreted. But Lise, contemplating his results, soon understood that something much more important was happening - the uranium atom was being split! It was this discovery that would change the war and the course of history. Unfortunately Lise Meitner would not be acknowledged for her discovery.

Discussion

Anyone who has studied chemistry and physics in high school and university will be familiar with the names and contributions of Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Max Planck, Werner Heisenberg, James Franck, Fritz Haber and Otto Hahn. What is almost certain, is that these same students have never heard of Lise Meitner, a woman physicist and a Austrian Jew who discovered nuclear fission.  The Woman Who Split the Atom tells Lise's story, her contributions to nuclear physics, her daring escape from Germany and her struggle to be recognized for her scientific contributions.

Marissa Moss has written an engaging, informative account of Lise Meitner's life and scientific contributions to nuclear physics. It is the story of a life set against the backdrop of gender and racial discrimination amid two World Wars.

Author Marissa Moss captures the determination and courage that Lise Meitner exhibited throughout her life, succeeding in spite of enormous obstacles encountered as a result of discrimination. Initially she faced many barriers simply because she was female. Women were finally allowed to attend university in 1907 but they had to pass a high school exit exam, despite the fact that girls could not attend high school  Lise passed this exam. Once she graduated, Lise couldn't get hired as a physicist and lost a good job writing for an encyclopedia because she was a woman. So she had to use her initial rather than her full first name to disguise her gender. 

Even though women were finally allowed onto the campus of the University of Belin in 1908, Lise found the atmosphere intimidating and hostile at the mostly male school. She was given a lab, in a basement without pay or position, and had to make her own lab equipment. Despite all of these obstacles, Lise's hard work and determination eventually saw her develop an international reputation for her research on radioactivity. She published many articles and earned the respect of many of her male scientist-peers. 

When she finally achieved an academic position in Berlin, a new obstacle surfaced: her Jewish ancestry. But Meitner was reluctant to flee to safety until the last minute, because it meant giving up all that she had achieved as a woman physicist. It would mean starting all over. Because she had overcome many of the barriers due to her sex, she felt she could also overcome the barriers due to being Jewish. She could not have been more wrong.

However, an even greater challenge awaited Meitner. In 1938, Lise Meitner was able to explain Otto Hahn's unusual experimental results as the splitting of the atom, a process she called nuclear fission.  Lise and Otto Hahn published a paper in 1939 describing nuclear fission and were nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1941, 1942 and 1943. In 1945, Otto Hahn was awarded the 1944 Nobel Prize  for nuclear fission. He refused to acknowledge that it was Meitner who understood the atomic process that was occurring in his experiments. This lack of credit continues to this day, with the continued erasure of Lise Meitner as the scientist who explained the process of nuclear fission.

In her Author's Note, Moss writes, "By focusing on Meitner's work, as she did herself, I found the story that needed to be told: how a brilliant woman was marginalized first because of her gender, then because of her ethnicity, and ultimately by her gender again when the Nobel Prize went to a man who had no concept at all of nuclear fission, rather than to the woman who had described exactly what happened." Moss's book is an attempt to give Meitner back her place in history as the discoverer of nuclear fission. 

Her erasure was foreshadowed by the events surrounding the discovery of a new isotope called protactinium in which "...Meitner did the experiments, discussed the results with Hahn, wrote up their findings, and published them." Hahn received credit for this discovery and was awarded the Emil Fischer Medal. Meitner received a copy of the medal and no recognition for her research. She would be nominated at total of FORTY-EIGHT times for the Nobel Prize. She never won.

There are forty short chapters in The Woman Who Split the Atom, each beginning with an comic illustration of an event to be highlighted in the chapter. Moss describes Lise Meitner's struggles to be accepted into the male-dominated world of science, and to have her work acknowledged, something that was denied repeatedly. Moss also describes Lise Meitner's belief that science should be used for the good of mankind. This belief was severely challenged through two world wars that saw scientists develop chemical warfare in World War I and the atom bomb in World War II. In the latter war, it was Lise's discovery of nuclear fission the led to the development of the bomb. She would work towards developing atomic energy and to challenging German scientists who refused to acknowledge their complicity in the Holocaust.

The Woman Who Split the Atom is fascinating reading, drawing on the considerable research done by Marissa Moss. It is highly recommended for those interested in history and science, especially the discovery of atomic energy. Moss includes a detailed Afterword which is a sort of Epilogue demonstrating that the record regarding the discovery of nuclear fission remains incomplete and inaccurate without the acknowledgement of Lise Meitner's contribution. This thorough and detailed biography includes an Author's Note, a Timeline of Meitner's Life and Achievements, Glossary of Select Terms in Physics, Profiles of Scientists Mentioned, Notes with sources of quotes, a Select Bibliography and an Index. 

Book Details:

The Woman Who Split The Atom: The Life of Lise Meitner by Marissa Moss
New York: Abrams Books for Young Readers     2022
258 pp.

A Bowl Full of Peace by Caren Stelson

"Itadakhimasu. (EE-TAH-DAH-KEE-MAHS)
traditionally spoken before eating a meal, this Japanese word means "we humbly receive this food."

A Bowl Full of Peace is based on the true story of Sachiko Yasui, who was six-years-old when the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.

 In Sachiko's family, grandmother's green leaf bowl has passed mother to daughter countless times. No one is sure how old it is.At dinner every evening the green leaf bowl is placed on the table. Sachiko, her mother and father, two brothers and baby sister eat the delicious food it contains. Before eating, Sachiko and her family say "Itadakhimasu".

Then war comes to Nagasaki, with soldiers marching in the streets, weapons being made and families losing loved ones. As time passes, the green leaf bowl is still placed on the table when Sachiko and her family have dinner. But over the months and years, the bowl contains less and less food. Udon noodles, squid and eel are replaced with mackerel and broth, and then wheat balls in boiled water. Still Sachiko and her family including little sister Misa and Toshi say "Itadakhimasu."

War comes closer and closer. Finally one summer day, August 9th, the air raid sirens go off. Sachiko and her family rush to the air raid shelter, leaving the green leaf bowl in their home. When the all clear sounds, Sachiko and her friends decide to play outside. But they do not notice the bomber high in the sky. Suddenly there is a horrible blast. When the blackness clears, Sachiko and her family are stunned. Sachiko, her mother and father, her brothers Aki and Ichiro, and sister Misa survive. But the blast has killed little Toshi.

As fires burn throughout the city during the day and into the next, Sachiko's father decides the family must leave Nagasaki. As they leave the city they see many people suffering. In a small hospital outside of Nagasaki, first Aki and then Ichiro sicken and die. Then Sachiko and Misa and their parents become ill. 

Two years later Sachiko and her family return to Nagasaki. When her father digs through the ruins of their demolished home, he finds grandmother's green bowl. It is completely undamaged. Once again the family begins using the bowl to serve their family meal, saying "Itadakhimasu". When the following summer arrives, on August 9th, Sachiko's mother fills the bowl with ice to remember how the ice quenched their burning thirst when they were sick from the bomb.

Over the next ten years both Sachiko's sister Misa and her father die from sickness caused by the bomb. Still Sachiko and her mother continue to remember the dead every year on August 9th. Eventually Sachiko's mother dies. Fifty years after the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Sachiko decides she must speak out and she begins talking to children in schools so that no one ever die again from war and a bomb like that dropped on Nagasaki.

Discussion

A Bowl Full of Peace is based on the experiences of Sachiko Yasui who survived the atomic bomb detonated on the city of Nagasaki on August 9th, 1945. The author, Caren Stelson visited Nagasaki numerous times and interviewed Sachiko for her book, Sachiko: A Nagasaki Bomb Survivor's Story which was published in 2016. During her conversations with Sachiko, Stelson learned about the green leaf bowl her grandmother had and she knew that Sachiko's story could also be told from this point of view.

Sachiko was only six years old at the time of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. The bomb was dropped shortly after 11am on a hot summer morning. Sachiko was playing house with  a group of five children in her neighborhood of Mezame-machi when the bomb was detonated. They had just returned from an air raid alarm and were playing two doors down from Sachiko's home when they heard the engines of an airplane. All the children lay down on the ground. Suddenly there was a brilliant flash and then they all felt an enormous blast sweep over them. The five children were buried in the debris of houses that were blown over them.

Eventually Sachiko and the other four children were dug out of the dirt and debris by her uncle, mother and other adults. However, Sachiko was the only child to survive; the other children had suffocated from breathing in so much dirt. Her family fled to a nearby mountain but soon the mountain area was filled with injured people, some with serious burns and skin hanging off in strips. Sachiko and her family met her fourteen year old brother who had been badly burned on one side, her ten-year-old brother who had been on the mountain and seemed unhurt but who had, unknown at this time, been exposed to a large amount of radiation. Her younger sister Misa also seemed uninjured but her youngest brother, Toshi had died in the explosion .

It was not long before Sachiko and her family began to sicken. Her older brother became feverish, while her younger brother who had thought he was fine, began vomiting. Sachiko also felt weak. That night they travelled to Shimabara, with Sachiko's mother carrying Misa on her back, her father carrying her oldest brother, and her second oldest brother walking. Eventually the family had to take the oldest brother to the hospital in Shimabara while the rest of the family went to stay with relatives on a farm.

It wasn't long before the entire family became ill. Nothing was known at this time about radiation poisoning but all began to show signs of this poisoning. On August 20, Sachiko's second oldest brother - the one who thought he had been saved - passed away. Meanwhile her oldest brother continued to get sicker and he died in hospital on September 1. Sachiko's aunt and uncle also died from radiation poisoning soon after.

Then Sachiko became sick with fever, loss of appetite, and sores. She began to recover slowly. Now only her younger sister and herself remained along with their parents. Life was very hard, with little food and no real shelter. In 1954, Sachiko's younger sister passed away from leukemia. In 1961, Sachiko's father died from liver disease. Sachiko herself developed thyroid cancer but survived. Her mother died forty years after the bombing from leukemia. At this point in her life, Sachiko knew she wanted to work for peace so that wars like the one that resulted in the atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima would never happen again.

To that end, Stelson using the story of a family heirloom, a green leaf bowl passed down through Sachiko's family to tell her story. Through the picture book format, young readers can learn about how war creates so much suffering. A Bowl Full of Peace offers readers the opportunity to learn about World War II and specifically the war in the Pacific between Japan and its neighbors and the United States. Stelson's text is simple and straightforward and is accompanied by full page digitally created illustrations by Akira Kusaka. 

Stelson has included a detailed Author's Note at the back as well as an Illustrators Note (written in English and Japanese) and a list of Recommended Books.

Book Details:

A Bowl Full of Peace by Caren Stelson
Minneapolis: Carol Rhoda Books    2020
(eBook version)

And Then The Sky Exploded by David A. Poulsen

Thirteen-year-old Christian Larkin is attending the funeral of his beloved great-grandfather, William Deaver. GG Will as he was affectionately known was a kind man who had worked in the area of material physics. However his funeral is met by protesters yelling about Deaver being a killer and a bomb maker. A few days after the funeral, Christian approaches his mother to ask her why there were protesters at GG Will's funeral but she won't tell him and refers him to his dad. But Christian's dad, who is vice-principal at Anna Fernicola Middle School also won't talk to him about what happened.  The only thing Christian has learned, from the local Trimble Times-Herald, is that the protesters were at the funeral to protest Mr. Deaver's involvement in the Manhattan Project.

Both Christian and his sister Carly attend Anna Fernicola Middle School and this is where Christian begins to understand what his great-grandfather was involved in. The class bully, Lorelei Faber accuses Christian of having a great-grandfather who "helped kill millions of people." She mentions the Manhattan Project, in which a group of scientists from all over the world worked on a building an atomic bomb that was eventually dropped on Japan. This leads Christian to do his own research on the Manhattan Project.

He discovers that his great-grandfather was among the famous scientists who worked on the secret Manhattan Project. They were developing an atom bomb using uranium and plutonium. The first atom bomb to be used in war was dropped on the city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Christian learns that over two hundred thousand people died either directly or indirectly because of the first bomb. As he tries to comprehend that number of people dying, Christian wonders "if there were any Anne Frank-type stories about Hiroshima" to help him understand the human side of what happened.

Christian's best friend is a deaf boy, Carson Tinsley whom he met in football camp during the summer.The two boys like to eat and talk football. Because of his disability, Carson who is sixteen is in Christian's grade nine class. Carson can drive and so he often takes his father's 2003 Chevy Cavalier to school, picking up Christian along the way.

Christian attends the first meeting of the Weston Comprehensive High School Travel Club. The club's twenty-six members has to decide on a destination for it's trip this year. The students have suggested France, England, Germany and Portugal as possibilities, but Christian suggests that they consider Japan because of its very different culture. The club's advisor, Mr. Pettigrew wants them to consider all of these options including Japan. After the meeting one of the club members and a classmate, Zaina Nawal asks Christian to go see a Japanese movie showing at the Variety Theatre on the weekend. However, Chris who is infatuated with the beautiful Julie LaPointe, who happens to be dating another guy, turns her down. But Carson tells him he needs to forget about Julie and think about the girl who is actually interested in him.

At a second meeting of the Travel Club, Mr. Pettigrew tells the members that he has discovered there is a program through the Japanese embassy which helps with the cost of travel. Due to the 2011 tsunami disaster there has been a decline in tourism to Japan and the government is providing funding for school trips from abroad. So Mr. Pettigrew suggests that he and Chris research more into this option. After the meeting, Chris talks to Zaina and apologizes to her for turning her down, telling her he would in fact like to go to the movie with her. They exchange numbers.

After completing their research on Japan, Mr. Pettigrew tells Chris that they must get approval for the trip from the school administration and the Parents Council for the trip.At the Parents Council meeting, Lorelei's mother who is the vice-chair strongly voices her opposition to the Japan trip. However, Lorelei stands up to her mother and the trip is approved by the Parents Council.

As part of his preparation for the Japan trip Chris goes to the library with his girlfriend Zaina to research the Manhattan project. He tells Zaina that "someone in my family might have been partly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people..." and that he needs to learn more. Christian's best friend, Carson questions him as to why he wants to go to Japan. Christian tells him that partly it's for himself, that he wants to be proud of his great-grandpa. He also tells Carson that "I know it's crazy, but I can't help it.I keep having these thoughts that maybe there's something I can do to...I don't know...make a difference..."

Will Christian find what he's seeking in visiting Japan - a way to come to terms with his grandfather's actions and to understand an important part of world history?

Discussion

And Then The Sky Exploded is a short piece of historical fiction that explores the ethics of dropping the atom bomb on Japan, unfortunately not in a very in-depth way. Poulsen does this through his main character, young Christian Deaver, whose great-grandfather, the fictional William Deaver,  was one of the scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb. Unfortunately, no one in his family will openly discuss this with him, leaving him to feel conflicted over the actions of a beloved great-grandfather.

Children's Peace Monument
http://www.city.hiroshima.lg.jp/shimin/heiwa/monument.html

In order to demonstrate to young readers what that day was like in Hiroshima, seventy years ago, Poulsen presents a separate narrative of a young girl, Yuko which chronicles the experience of a survivor of the atomic bomb explosion. Christian was able to better understand the effects of the Holocaust by reading Anne Frank's diary and wishes to better understand what it was like in Hiroshima.  "Anne Frank. I read that book a couple of years ago and I felt like crap when I'd finished because I knew she'd died...I was actually able to feel something because it was one person.Or a few people. And because of the diary, I knew them -- especially Anne. I wondered if there were any Anne Frank-type stories about Hiroshima." And so through Yuko's narratives the reader learns what it was like that day when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. However, for Christian, he begins to understand when he visits the Atomic Bomb Dome. "And standing there at the Dome, I could see in my mind's eye people sitting at desks, maybe some talking on the telephone, some typing, just starting their day's work. This place -- this made it personal. Like Sadako. Like Anne Frank. Both young girls. Both died in the war."  The two narratives intersect when Christian meets Yuko's grand-daughter and asks if he can meet her Obaasan,  Yuko. Apologizing on behalf of his great-grandfather and explaining to Yuko that his relative tried unsuccessfully to stop the atomic bombing of Japan, brings healing and forgiveness to Christian and peace to Yuko. She tells him, "You have done something for me, Christian-kun. You have heard my words. You have listened with respect to me. And believed me. And cared. That is enough."

Poulsen doesn't delve too deeply into a consideration of the ethics of dropping the atomic bombs on Japan. It's easy enough to understand what led to the decision to drop the bombs (America wanted to end the war quickly) and easy to criticize through the lens of time. Zaina points out to Christian that sometimes people had no choice as to what they did during wartime, but Christian counters that the scientists on the Manhattan Project were not prisoners and were not forced to work on the bomb - they did so willingly. But Zaina states, "...maybe it's a case of doing what you have to do to end the war and stop more people from dying." Christian at first considers this argument mainly because he hasn't heard a counter argument to it. Eventually through his friend Carson, Christian learns that some of the scientists working on the Manhattan project did attempt to appeal to President Truman not to use to bomb. One of those scientists was Christian's great-grandfather.

For the most part, And Then The Sky Exploded is a short, high interest novel about the bombing of Hiroshima. This novel would make a good introduction for younger readers of the issues surrounding the use of atomic/nuclear weapons. Catholic readers also might consider exploring the Catholic theological doctrine of just war.

There is the odd stereotypical character such as the class bully, Lorelei Faber who is a "big, overweight, round-faced, nasally voiced rich kid" who "does her hurting with words, not fists." But even Lorelei turns out to have redeeming qualities.Christian has a good mix of supporting characters including Carson who helps him work through his mixture of feelings and Zaina who gets him to think differently about Lorelei. Disappointing is the lack of parental input into Christian's journey to understand his family's connection to the atomic bombing and the backstory. If this had been included it could have made Christian's journey more engaging.

Readers can check out the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum website which provides a wealth of information including a virtual museum, survivor stories and a section on Sadako a young survivor who is mentioned in Poulsen's novel and who died from leukemia and for whom the Children's Peace Monument was erected.

Information on the Children's Peace Monument can be found here.

The Manhattan Project webpage of the U.S History website has a wealth of information as well as links to other useful site.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission website has a page devoted to Canada's Historical Role in Developing Nuclear Weapons.


Book Details:

And Then The Sky Exploded by David A. Poulsen
Toronto: Dundurn Press    2016
pp.206

White Sands, Red Menace by Ellen Klages

White Sands, Red Menace picks up the story of Dewey Kerrigan and Suze Gordon, post-World War II.The novel covers the span of approximately one year from May 12, 1946 to May 15, 1947.

It is May 12, 1946 and the United States has won the war in the Pacific, dropping two atomic bombs, which Dewey and Suze's parents helped to build, on cities in Japan. Casualties were in the hundreds of thousands and the public, including the scientists remain divided over the use of nuclear technology. 

Dewey continues to live with the Gordons who are now located in Alamogordo, New Mexico, a hour from the Mexican border and only sixty miles from the Trinity test site. The novel opens with Dewey and the Gordons driving to the White Sands Proving Grounds, a flat expanse of arid desert where the US government is testing the launch of the first American rocket launched into outer space.

The American army captured three hundred boxcars full of V-2 rocket parts along with the instructions, all written in German. The German scientists who were working on the rocket, including Wernher von Braun, have been brought over to America to help the country build its own rockets. Dr. Gordon tells Dewey and Suze that this is the first rocket to travel straight up into the outer atmosphere. The launch is successful.

Meanwhile Dewey and Suze continue to develop their areas of interest: Dewey with building various machines and Suze with her art creations. In their shared bedroom, the two girls work on creating a wall of artwork and mechanical pieces that they name "the Wall".  In July, Dewey receives a cheque for three thousand dollars from her grandmother, Nana Gallucci's estate, plus her jewelry and her Nana's clothing. She also finds a picture of her grandparents and her father Jimmy Kerrigan and mother, Rita Gallucci Kerrigan when they much younger.

Suze's father continues to be very involved in the development of a rocket, while her mother works from home to stop further development of nuclear weapons. A chemist, her efforts are no longer needed by the military and she desperately wants to resume her career at Berkley. Longing for a connection to her mother, it is Suze's father who takes her to the desert to see the beautiful sunset and the stars. He tells her that he's going to be out at the base again for some time, involved in launch tests.

Over the course of the next year, Suze and Dewey make new friends. In August, Suze meets a girl, Ynez Esquero, from the southern part of Alamogordo which is primarily Mexican. This part of town is known as "Little Chihuahua" and the Hispanics are not allowed to live north of Tenth. Ynez is selling tamales which Suze discovers she really likes. Suze visits Ynez's home and learns that she wants to live in Hollywood some day. Ynez's mother, Dona Luisa, teaches Suze how to make tamales.

The school year starts and Dewey who is now attending Alamogordo High, is forced to take Home Economics and to repeat Algebra instead of being allowed to enroll in the grade nine trigonometry class. Dewey and Suze are in English, Social Science and Home Ec together. When a film is to be shown in Home Ec class, a boy named Owen Parker brings in the projector but has trouble getting things running. Dewey unobtrusively helps him and later on Owen helps her by taking her to his father's repair shop to teach her how to solder. Through the school year Dewey and Suze build new friendships while their own relationship becomes more secure. And as each face startling new situations to deal with, the true meaning of family is discovered.

Discussion

White Sands, Red Menace is a fitting conclusion to the story of Dewey and Suze and the beginning of the atomic age. Once again Klages does an excellent job recreating the setting for her novel - this time, life in postwar America, late 1940's.

The social and political fallout from the development of the atom bomb is shown throughout the novel. Sometimes the consequences are personal for Dewey and Suze, other times they are more indirect. For example, Suze comes home one day to find her mother grieving over the death of a colleague, Lou Slotin who died from radiation sickness as a result of a plutonium accident.  Terry Gordon reveals to her daughter Suze that only the first hundred thousand casualties in Hiroshima where due to the actual bomb explosion. The rest died from radiation sickness like Slotin, which horrifies Suze. In Social Science class Suze confronts Mrs. McDonald telling her the government won't let the newspapers print the truth about Japan "because it might scare people and turn them against 'our new friend, the atom.' " When she tells the class what is really happening she is sent to the principal's office.

Klage uses a conversation between Dewey and Suze to hint at the hypocrisy of the American government in executing the remaining Nazi's at Nuremberg while not executing scientists like von Braun whose rockets killed thousands in Britain. Suze tells her, "My dad says it doesn't matter, 'cause we need 'em to teach our army how to work the controls and stuff." When the Gordons have one of von Braun's crew, Rudy Mueller and his son Kurt over for Thanksgiving, Kurt tells Suze, Dewey and Owen how the Germans were able to use many "workers" to make so many rockets at Nordhausen.  Suze realizes that Kurt is referring to the Nordhausen concentration work camp, where the U.S. troops discovered the bodies of 3,000 slave laborers and where 20,000 slaves died making rocket parts. Suze realizes that if she knows, likely her dad and the other government scientists know too.

There's plenty of cultural references throughout the novel. For example, Dewey and Suze go to the theatre to see Tarzan and the Leopard Woman which starred Johnny Weissmuller and Brenda Joyce. The theatre also shows Spider Woman Strikes Back and the previews show the atomic bomb test at the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific and Chapter Nine of Captain Midnight. In 1946 New Mexico, Black children are not allowed to attend Alamogordo High and could only attend school up to Grade Eight. Obviously this will affect the types of employment available to Black men and women. When Owen comes to visit Dewey he tells her about seeing a television in El Paso, Texas. In 1946, a ten inch television cost four hundred dollars. At this time there was no television station in El Paso but one in Los Angeles. He's certain that soon televisions will soon be sold.

The years immediately following the atomic bombing of Japan saw many products in the US marketed as "atomic" suggesting they had special abilities. Suze had expected her parents and the other scientists would be heroes for ending the war in the Pacific through the use of the atom bomb. However, when the world saw the damage done by the bombs, there were no celebrations, but America could not admit this. It would be unpatriotic. So Suze believes that instead American businesses try to minimize the harm of atomic technology by marketing it as beneficial to society.  "Songs, ads, comic -- everything was 'atomic' now, like just using the word would make stuff special? Atomic-like action! Who in their right mind wanted a cleanser that worked like the Bomb? It would blow up your sink, your kitchen, turn your whole neighborhood into ashes and rubble and radiation. Some way to clean."

Readers will get a good sense of the social norms of the post war era in which women had to conform to certain expectations. During the war, women worked in factories while men were overseas fighting but with the end of the war, society returns to the traditional roles expected of men and women. Men are to learn mechanical skills like welding and woodworking, while women are expected to learn domestic skills like cooking and hygiene. Klage uses the character of Dewey, who is different from most girls her age, to portray how difficult it was to fight the social norms of the times. Dewey will be in Grade Eight and wants to take shop but is told, "Oh no. Those are boys' classes." Instead, she is forced to enroll in Home Economics. In fact Dewey is not even allowed to go into that part of the school only because she is a girl. She worries that not taking shop will affect her chance of attending MIT for engineering.

Klages portrayal of the relationship between Dewey and Suze is very realistic: life is  not all roses. There is sibling rivalry and the typical teenage angst. The Gordon's have taken in Dewey when her father died. Dewey and Terry Gordon form a bond based on their love of science and the fact that they think in a similar way. This aspect of their relationship causes Suze to feel left out and jealous. Dewey seems to recognize this and tries to help Suze. When the girls have a fight over Dewey going to practice driving with Suze's mother, Suze finally admits to her friend, "I feel like an orphan. Dad's off with his rockets, and Mom's always busy." The fight leads Suze to talk to her mom about how she's feeling and her mother tells her,
 " 'I'm glad. Because I do love Dewey. As much as if she was your real sis--sibling. But that doesn't mean I love you any less. You know that, don't you?
'I guess so.'
'Oh, that was convincing.' She turned in her chair so they sat knee to knee. 'You're my daughter, no matter what. Always will be.
'Even though I don't like science much,' Suze said in a small voice. 'You're not disappointed I'm not more like you?' She paused, 'And Dewey.' "
Suze's mom reassures her of her love and tells Suze that she's more like her mom than she suspects. She shows Suze a picture of her and her friends, how she was tall like Suze at the same age and just as curious.

Dewey herself must also come to terms with the relationship between herself and her mother, who reappears in her life later in the novel. She learns the truth about her parents and why her mother left and she must make the difficult decision about what part her mother will play in her own life. In this regard, Dewey is presented as a very mature fourteen year old who knows what her goals are and who is determined to achieve them. With the help of her best friend Suze, Dewey takes the unusual step of taking control of her own destiny.

There are a few historical facts peppered throughout the novel. For example Louis Slotin was a real historical figure, a Canadian physicist who worked to assemble the nuclear core of the Trinity bomb. Slotin died from a massive dose of neutron radiation when he accidentally caused a critical reaction to occur. The type of testing Slotin was involved in was called criticality testing and was considered very dangerous. Another historical fact is the McMahon Act which placed atomic research in the hands of the scientists removing it from military control.

White Sands, Red Menace is a fascinating read about the period of history just prior to the start of the Cold War. Klages offers a detailed Author's Note at the back which provides some further information and resources on the 1940's, the V-2 Rocket Program and the Atomic Bomb. Fans of historical fiction will enjoy this reading about life in the years immediately following the war.

Book Details:

White Sands, Red Menace by Ellen Klages
New York: Viking Press       2008
337 pp.

The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages

"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."

Jimmy Kerrigan to his daughter Dewey as they eat lunch together, Los Alamos, New Mexico.

The Green Glass Sea is a story of family, friendship and loss during World War II. The lives of two girls, Susan Gordon and Dewey Marie Kerrigan intersect as their families are brought to Los Alamos in this narrative about the Manhattan Project and the American effort to develop the atom bomb.

The story begins in 1943 with ten-year-old Dewey Kerrigan being picked up by Corporal Margaret Beckwith on the steps of her neighbour, Mrs. Kovack's house in St. Louis. Dewey had been living with her nana but she had a stroke and had to go into the hospital. Her father is in Chicago helping with the war effort and Dewey hasn't seen him since the Fourth of July.

Corporal Margaret Beckwith tells her that her father is no longer in Chicago but at a location in New Mexico so secret that even she doesn't know. She is placed on a train to Lamy, New Mexico and a porter is assigned to care for her. On the train, Dewey discovers there is an observation car and she takes her magazine, Boy Mechanic, and her radio set to the car to tinker with.

In the observation car Dewey meets a young man, who looks like a bum but who knows about radios. Coincidentally, the man who gives his name as Dick Feynman, is also traveling to Lamy, New Mexico and he knows Dewey's father, Jimmy Kerrigan. Dick tells Dewey that they will be living at a place called the Hill. When they arrive in Lamy, Dick waits with Dewey until she is picked up by Sergeant Prager who takes her to get a pass to the Hill from Dorothy McKibbin. Finally Dewey is reunited with her beloved papa who drives her to their home in Los Alamos. Her father has been sent to Los Alamos to work on creating a special "gadget" that will win the war for the Americans.

The story then jumps to August of 1944. Susan (Suze) Gordon is playing cards with her mom in their house. Suze and her mother and father, who were both professors at Berkeley arrived on the Hill in the fall of 1943. Suze's father is a metallurgist, her mother is a chemist. Although eleven-year-old Suze wants to be friends with girls like Judy, Barbara, Betty and Joyce, she finds herself unable to break into their clique. In an attempt to win their approval, Suze tells the girls that she knows a shortcut to the Tech PX so they can get cokes.

Meanwhile Dewey who has finished a picnic lunch with her papa, decides to go to the dump for parts for her latest project. At the dump she meets her friend Charlie and his little brother Jack. Dewey is in Charlie's eighth grade math class. The boys are there looking for wood for their secret treehouse while Dewey finds copper tubing and a broken typewriter. The three help each other with their cumbersome load of "finds" and make their way back.  On their way they encounter Suze and the girls she is with. When Suze sees Dewey, she ridicules her by calling her "screwy Dewey". Instead of playing with the other kids, Dewey is always working on her radio or some other project at recess. Suze's bullying of Dewey doesn't have the result she expects, as Charlie defends Dewey and even offers to buy her a coke.

A few days later, Suze's mother Terry takes her to visit a friend in another part of the Hill called Morganville. That friend turns out to be Jimmy Kerrigan, Dewey's father. When Suze realizes this she is not friendly towards "screwy Dewey".

The story then moves to March 24, 1945 with Dewey's father telling her he has to meet with General Groves and his committee who have arrived from Washington. After he leaves, Dewey is visited by Suze's mother, Terry Gordon who is looking for Dewey's father and becomes interested in Dewey's "time machine". On Sunday Dewey and her father have a picnic in Bandelier National Monument. Dewey notes that her father seems very sad and troubled. During their time together he tells her that before the war he worked with a German mathematician, Josef who lived in Berlin. Before the war they "were trying to understand how the world works, and borders didn't matter. But they do now."  Now Josef and Dewey's father are in a race to solve the same problems. The General has asked Dewey's father to help them understand papers published by German scientists and this means he has to go to Washington. Terry Gordon offers to take in Dewey for the time Jimmy is away however, Suze is not happy with this. When she expresses her displeasure at "screwy Dewey" coming to live with them, Suze's mom becomes angry and tells her never to use that name again. Moving in with the Gordons turns out to be the least of the many challenges Dewey will face as the war moves towards its devastating conclusion.

Discussion

The Green Glass Sea offers a fascinating look into life for a very specific group of people during World War II: the children of the scientists who worked on creating the first atomic weapon. The atomic bombs dropped on Japan which resulted in the nation's surrender and the end to war in the Pacific were the first weapons of mass destruction ever used. The Green Glass Sea portrays the scientists who worked to develop the atom bomb and their families as highly intelligent people who were determined to help their country win the war in Europe and the Pacific.  These scientists were the top researchers in their fields of physics, chemistry, mathematics, engineering and metallurgy. Their family circumstances were similar to those of most Americans and their children had the same problems all children face growing up.

The two main characters in the novel are two girls who do not like one another but who eventually are drawn into a bond of friendship. Dewey and Suze are very different, yet they face a common struggle to fit in and be accepted. Dewey is brilliant and interested in creating machines. But her intelligence is not the only thing that sets her apart from the other children at the Hill: she has one leg shorter than the other requiring her to wear a special shoe and she wears very thick glasses. Suze is also highly intelligent but in a different way than Dewey: she is very artistic. Like Dewey, Suze's physical appearance sets her apart from others: she is big and strong. While Dewey is quiet and thoughtful, Suze is loud, unkind and a bully. Dewey doesn't care about fitting in but to Suze, fitting in is so important that she is willing to make fun of Dewey in the hopes the other girls on the Hill will include her.  The two girls are thrown together when Dewey comes to live with Suze's family while her father is in Washington. Suze is determined not to welcome her in any way: she doesn't want Dewey to have the top drawers of the dresser, she draws a line across the room dividing their space in two and marks the days off the calendar that Dewey is at her house.

Dewey takes it all in stride; she feels sorry for Suze because the other girls never ask her to play. Over the span of the following two months, Suze's view of Dewey undergoes a radical change.  After the death of President Roosevelt, Suze begins to warm to Dewey, apologizing for damaging her cigar box and the two girls share secrets about their names. When Dewey struggles to find the right pieces for her gadget, Suze decides to help her and in the process discovers that she can make works of art from the nuts, bolts, screws and other metal pieces Dewey has collected. Suze introduces Dewey to superhero comic books. But it is a trip to the dump to look for a drawer to hold Suze's next collage that cements their friendship. When the two girls are confronted and bullied by Barbara and Joyce, they both stand up for the other. And when Dewey is orphaned, Suze shows deep concern for Dewey and is determined that she continue to live with them. "If anyone had told her two months ago that she'd be asking to let Dewey stay with her, she's have told them they were nuts. But it felt right."  The two eventually form their own club, naming it Shazam.

As they get to know each other, Suze's view of Dewey changes. She recognizes that both she and Dewey are different but while Dewey seems comfortable with herself, Suze is not. Dewey teaches Suze to accept herself as she is. Suze realizes that she can be herself with Dewey who accepts Suze as she is. "She'd never had a conversation like this with another kid. She didn't feel like she had to be funny, or try to show Dewey how smart she was..."

Historical fiction succeeds if it instills in readers an reasonably accurate understanding of the era being portrayed. Many scientists working on the Manhattan project did not know exactly what they were working to create. Because the project was so secret, only a small group of scientists knew what they were working towards. Once the testing of the bomb was successful and the immensity of its power was realized, many of the scientists who had worked on the bomb, were strongly opposed to it being used.  Klages succeeds in realistically portraying this opposition in her novel.  Dewey's father appears to recognize how powerful the "gadget" they are attempting to build will be and for that reason he hopes the Germans have not progressed as far as the American scientists.

 After the test at Trinity, and realizing the immense power of the bomb, Terry Gordon expresses serious reservations to her husband, Dick Feynman and Dr. Teller about what they have done and the possibility of using the bomb on civilians. Dewey overhears their conversation:
"She heard Dick Feynman talking, and stopped in the doorway to listen. 'Well, yes. We started for a good reason, and we've been working so hard. It was pleasure. It was excitement,' he said. 'But you stop thinking about -- you know? You just stop. And now..."
And now that we've seen what it can do. My god,' Terry Gordon said, her voice raised, sounding angry. 'They can't use it. Not on civilians. Not on anyone, for that matter. I mean, maybe as a demonstration, but--'
'That's not realistic, Terry,' said Dr. Teller in his Hungarian accent. 'It's no longer an experiment to be demonstrated. It's a weapon, to end this terrible war once and for all.'
'At what cost, Edward? At what cost? Look, Chicago's drafted a petition. If enough of us sign it, they'll have to listen, and --'

Readers learn via a short radio clip what the American government eventually decided to do and today we know that two atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. Klages writes in her Author's Note at the back of her novel that she chose not to focus on the bombing of the two cities because the massive loss of life resulting from the atomic bombs is very hard to comprehend and beyond portrayal. She notes that readers experience the difficulty of coming to terms with the death of one person through the character of  Dewey who has to deal with the death of her father. However, the atomic bombs killed approximately 140,000 people in the initial blast with many tens of thousands dying of burns and radiation sickness in the weeks and months that followed. Death on such a scale in incomprehensible.

The title of the novel is a reference to green glass found after the Trinity atom bomb test on July 16, 1945 near Alamogordo, New Mexico. Temperatures generated from an atom bomb explosion were so high that the sand at the Trinity test site was metamorphosed into a new rock called trinitite. Trinitite has a green colour and most of it is mildly radioactive.

The Green Glass Sea is an excellent work of historical fiction about a unique period in history. Few novels have been written for young people about the Manhattan Project and Klages has done an excellent job in making this time period come alive for young readers. It's unfortunate that the book cover is so uninviting. Klages wrote a sequel to this novel,  White Sands, Red Menace which continues the story of Dewey and Suze in the Cold War era. 

For information on the Los Alamos site, the Atomic Heritage Foundation has a webpage: https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/location/los-alamos-nm/: 

The US History website has a page devoted to the Manhattan Project:  https://www.ushistory.org/us/51f.asp

Book Details:
The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages
New York: Puffin Books     2006
318 pp.

Bomb: The Race to Build - And Steal- The World's Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin

Bomb is Steve Sheinkin's fascinating account of the three way race between America, Germany and the Soviet Union to build the first atomic bomb. Whoever won this race would likely win World War II and America was determined it would not be Germany.

When fission was discovered and it's possibilities realized, the development of an atomic weapon became a massive project that involved hundreds of brilliant scientists drawn from Europe, Britain and America. It also became a multi-pronged tactical exercise that involved hindering German atomic research as much as possible, keeping American research secret from both Germany and the Soviets, co-ordinating the production of material required to make the bomb, and developing a team to deliver and drop it.

Sheinkin opens the story of "the creation and theft of the deadliest weapon ever invented" with the arrest of Harry Gold, an American who the FBI finally caught up to in 1950.

The story then backtracks to the early life of Robert Oppenheimer, a strange but brilliant character whose peers often considered him "as being sort of nuts". Oppenheimer had a tendency to illness so his parents kept him inside, allowing Robert to develop his interest in languages and science. In high school he loved chemistry and physics. He graduated from Harvard University in 1925 and then went overseas to Britain and Germany where he completed advanced degrees. Oppie, as he was nicknamed, eventually returned to the United States and was hired by the University of California at Berkley where he developed a theoretical physics program. At this time theoretical physics was focused on attempting to figure out how the inner parts of atoms behaved. As he got a bit older, Oppenheimer become more aware of current events taking place in the world at large and was alarmed at Adolf Hitler's rise to power in 1933. Oppenheimer had Jewish relatives and friends in Germany and he was concerned about their safety.

In 1938, an astounding discovery was made by a German scientist, Otto Hahn. By the late 1930's scientists understood more about the nature of matter than ever before. They knew that atoms were the small particles that made up all things and they knew a little bit about the structure of atoms, that they had a nucleus made up of protons and neutrons with electrons whizzing around the nucleus in a sort of orbit. They also knew that some atoms were unstable or radioactive, giving off energy in the form of particles which broke away from the nucleus. Scientists like Hahn used radioactive atoms to make an amazing discovery. When Hahn placed uranium beside a radioactive element, he discovered that the uranium atom appeared to be split into two atoms - something considered impossible at this time.

He was so surprised by this result that at first he didn't believe it and Hahn contacted a friend, Lise Meitner, a Jewish physicist who had fled Germany. Meitner in turn showed her nephew who was also a physicist. Otto Frisch and Lise Meitner concluded that it was possible and that if it did occur, a great deal of energy would be released. This discovery was so incredible that Frisch raced to Copenhagen, Denmark where he told Neils Bohr. This process of splitting a uranium atom in two would be called fission and it was to have a profound effect on world history and the nature of war. When Robert Oppenheimer learned about fission , he knew that it had the potential to create the most powerful bomb the world had ever seen.

No one knew exactly what Germany was doing with this new found knowledge. During peace, normally scientists would share discoveries but with countries now falling into what appeared to be another global conflict, no one could be certain of anything. Two concerned physicists solicited the help of  the renowned Albert Einstein who wrote a letter to President Roosevelt telling him about the German discovery of fission and its potential ramifications. If Germany developed the first fission bomb, they would be in a position of world dominance, capable of inflicting deadly damage on any country they were at war with. When Roosevelt understood the message conveyed by Einstein he decided to act.

First atomic bomb named "Gadget" tested at Trinity

This is where Harry Gold returns to the story. Like many American's during the depression, Gold ended up losing his job. He got a chance at employment in a soap factory where he met Tom Black, a committed communist. When Gold went back to work for his former employer, the Pennsylvania Sugar Company, Black recruited Gold to steal the chemical processes for the Soviet Union. This was how Gold became involved in "the greatest crime of the century" as described by J. Edgar Hoover.

With the bombing of Pearl Harbour in the early morning hours of December 7, 1941, the United States entered the Second World War. Reasearch into nuclear fission would now be of paramount importance.

The Soviets too heard about Hahn's remarkable discovery. Georgi Flerov a Soviet physicist noted that academic journals were suddenly devoid of papers on uranium fission, meaning that work was going ahead to build a bomb. The Soviets recognized that despite being allies against Germany with the Americans, they too needed to build their own atomic bomb. With their country in a death fight against the advancing Nazi army, they did not have the capability to do their own research. This mean they were going to have to steal the information necessary to make one. And the KGB set about to do just that. In order to steal the information the Soviets needed a "reliable source inside the American bomb project."

Leslie Groves, an engineer who had overseen the project to build the Pentagon was placed in charge of the American project to build an atom bomb, known as Manhattan Project. He eventually chose Robert Oppenheimer, who felt that a laboratory which was focused exclusively on building an atom bomb, was needed. This would allow scientists from different research labs to be in one centralized location and able to share insights. This despite reservations from the FBI who felt Oppenheimer's past interest in Communism made him unacceptable. Groves won and Oppenheimer was placed in charge of Manhattan Project.

From this point on Bomb details three storylines; the setting up of the Manhattan Project to build the world's first atomic bomb under the direction of Robert Oppenheimer, the destruction of the German's heavy water plant at Vemork near Rjukan, Norway and the cultivation of spies in America to steal vital information to make a bomb and pass it to the Soviets.

Each of these stories on their own, make fascinating reading, building to the climax of the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945. Sheinkin provides much interesting information on the actual development of the atomic bomb gathered from many sources. The entire Manhattan Project from beginning to end involved a great deal of planning, from recruiting the best and brightest scientists in the fields of physics, chemistry and mathematics, securing enough uranium, working out a bomb design, testing the bomb to ensure it worked, to hand picking the pilots and the crews to fly the missions. All of the problems encountered, the many characters involved in the Manhattan Project and the mixed reactions after the dropping of the first bomb are well described.

The story of the Vemork heavy water plant is also one that many readers will learn about. Its destruction by Knut Haukelid and his team was a significant setback to German scientists in the development of their own atom bomb and came with a heavy price to the people of Norway. We should all be grateful for their sacrifice and for the outstanding effort of the team sent into Vemork. It is quite possible that Germany would have won the race to build an atomic bomb were it not for the destruction of their heavy water plant.

Equally amazing is the story of  Soviet espionage and betrayal by two scientists working on the Manhattan Project supported by a colourful cast of international agents. The information stolen and passed onto the Soviets saved them from wasting valuable time in developing a bomb design and in the end resulted in an arms race that did not cease until the late 1980's. One can only speculate on how different the history of Eastern Europe might be today had the Soviets not had atomic and nuclear weapons.

Sheinkin has written a remarkably well researched book and told the story of the development of the atomic bomb and the theft of classified information in a way that is both engaging and informative. The book has four parts; Part 1: The Three Way Race, Part 2: Chain Reaction, Part 3: How To Build An Atomic Bomb and Part 4: Final Assembly. There is a Prologue and an Epilogue, the latter detailing the consequences that the major players in the espionage faced as well as how the arms race played out in the mid-20th century. A reproduction of the letter Albert Einstein sent to President Roosevelt as well a some pictures of the explosion at Trinity are also included.

Bomb is high recommended for those who have an interest in science and World War II history. Not surprisingly, Bomb was the winner of the 2013 Robert F. Sibert Medal for excellence in informational books. It also won the YALSA Award for Excellence in Young Adult NonFiction for 2013.

Book Details:
Bomb: The Race To Build - And Steal- The World's Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin
New York: Roaring Book Press     2012
266 pp.