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Summary
Summary
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.
Author Notes
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 (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Klages makes an impressive debut with an ambitious, meticulously researched novel set during WWII. Writing from the points of view of two displaced children, she successfully recreates life at Los Alamos Camp, where scientists and mathematicians converge with their families to construct and test the first nuclear bomb. Eleven-year-old Dewey, the daughter of a math professor, is shunned by the other girls at the camp due to her passionate interest in mechanics and her fascination with the dump, which holds all sorts of mechanisms and tools she can use for her projects. Her classmate Suze is also often snubbed and has been nicknamed "Truck" by her classmates (" 'cause she's kind of big and likes to push people around," explains one boy). The two outcasts reluctantly come together when Dewey's father is called away to Washington, D.C., and Dewey temporarily moves in with Suze's family. Although the girls do not get along at first (Suze draws a chalk line in her room to separate their personal spaces), they gradually learn to rely on each other for comfort, support and companionship. Details about the era-popular music, pastimes and products-add authenticity to the story as do brief appearances of some historic figures including Robert Oppenheimer, who breaks the news to Dewey that her father has been killed in a car accident. If the book is a little slow-moving at times, the author provides much insight into the controversies surrounding the making of the bomb and brings to life the tensions of war experienced by adults and children alike. Ages 9-up. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Intermediate, Middle School) Dewey, ten, embarks alone on a mysterious train trip from her grandmother's home in St. Louis to New Mexico, where she will rejoin her often-absent mathematician father. It's 1943, and Dewey's dad is working at Los Alamos-""the Hill""-with hundreds of other scientists and their families. Klages evokes both the big-sky landscape of the Southwest and a community where ""everything is secret"" with inviting ease and the right details, focusing particularly on the society of the children who live there. Dewey seems comfortable with her own oddness (she's small for her age, slightly lame, and loves inventing mechanical gizmos) and serves as something of an example to another girl, Suze, who has been trying desperately to fit in. Their burgeoning friendship sees them through bouts of taunting, their parents' ceaseless attention to ""the gadget,"" personal tragedy, and of course the test detonation early on July 16, 1945, which the two girls watch from a mesa two hundred miles away: ""Dewey could see the colors and patterns of blankets and shirts that had been indistinct grays a second before, as if it were instantly morning, as if the sun had risen in the south, just this once."" Cameo appearances are made by such famous names as Richard Feynman (he helps Dewey build a radio) and Robert Oppenheimer, but the story, an intense but accessible page-turner, firmly belongs to the girls and their families; history and story are drawn together with confidence. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
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 2006 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 5 Up-Winner of the 2007 Scott O'Dell Award, Ellen Klages's impeccably researched novel (Viking, 2006) is set in Los Alamos, New Mexico, between 1943 and 1945. Dewey Kerrigan, age 11, has been bounced from her parents to her grandmother. When her grandmother can no longer care for her, the girl joins her father at a secret military location. Her father works with preeminent scientists in Los Alamos, racing to research, develop, and build the ultimate military weapon. Work at Los Alamos forces Dewey's father to travel and a colleague agrees to keep Dewey, who adapts to the new situation, the community, and the school. Her brilliant, inquisitive mind endears physicists ("fizzlers") and chemists ("stinkers"), but alienates classmates and Girl Scouts. Dewey excels at math, science, coded messages, and junkyard explorations. Subtle debate between the scientists about the possible failure or measurable success of the project is haunting. Accomplished actress Julie Dretzin's narration is unhurried, relaxed, and inviting. Discussions of physics, mathematical function, cultural boundaries of gender and race, censorship, and the vulnerable child raised by a single parent make this exceptional story even more fascinating. Public and school libraries and homeschooling families should add this audiobook to their collections.-Suzanne Johnson, George F. Johnson Memorial Library, Endicott, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
The author's acknowledgement at the end of this work reveals that the last chapter was originally a short story that subsequently inspired the rest. This insight into the writing process makes sense of (but fails to redeem) the over 200 pages that precede that final chapter. Obviously (perhaps too obviously) well researched and undeniably earnest, this child's-eye view of the development of the atom bomb seems unlikely to find a wide or enthusiastic audience. Crammed with period detail like cigarette brands and radio models, as well as the names of the famous scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project, the narrative offers plenty of information but little insight. Main characters Dewey (the bright, plucky, soon-to-be orphan) and Suze (the bully desperate to have friends) are initially antagonistic, but eventually become friends. Unfortunately, too much description and too little action means these characters fail to come to life, making their interactions unconvincing and uninteresting. Secondary characters are even more broadly drawn and less engaging. Unusual and thoughtful, but ultimately unsuccessful. (Fiction. 10-14) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
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. Excerpted from The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.