The Green Glass Sea

Genre: Historical Fiction

Klages, Ellen. The green glass sea. New York, N.Y.: Viking, 2006. Narrated by Julie Dretzin. MP3 Playaway.  Recorded Books, 2007.   Book ISBN:  0-670-06134-4

Dewey Kerrigan is a young girl moving around the country to wherever her Army dad is working.  When her grandmother has a stroke, Dewey has to go live with her father at a top secret location in a top secret place.  It is 1943 and Dewey is dealing with World War II.  Everything is top secret and no one can say anything about anything.  As the war goes on, Dewey tries her best to fit in on “The Hill” where she and her father are living.  Her father was a scientist working on “The Gadget” for the Army.  After her father’s untimely death, Dewey is terrified of what will happen to her.  Then “the Gadget” works, and we have the birth of the atomic bomb. 

Klages writes an intriguing story about a young girl growing up and trying to find herself during World War II.  She intermixes a story of a girl trying to fit in with a bunch of “Army brats” into the historical facts about the making of the atomic bomb.  Her setting of “the Hill” is in Los Alamos, New Mexico, a real place that wasn’t on any maps during the 1940’s.  “Trinity” is also a real place that Klages uses.  This was the desert place where they tested the bomb.  One feels the pain and confusion of each of the characters as they realize what is going on with the war, the tragic deaths, and even the playfulness of the children on “the Hill”. 

“An intense but accessible page-turner… history and story are drawn together with confidence.” – Horn Book Magazine

“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.” –Publisher’s Weekly

“Clear prose brings readers right into the unusual atmosphere of the secretive scientific community, seen through the eyes of the kids and their families.” –School Library Journal

“The characters are exceptionally well drawn, and the compelling, unusual setting makes a great tie-in for history classes.” –Booklist

Winner, 2007 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction
Winner, 2007 Judy Lopez Memorial Award for Children's Literature
Winner, 2007 New Mexico State Book Award (YA)
 Finalist, 2007 Quill Awards (Young Adult)
Finalist, Northern California Book Awards, 2007 (Children's)
Finalist, Locus Awards, 2007 (Best First Novel)
Book Sense #1 Children's Pick - Winter 2006/2007
 One Book, One Nebraska for Kids - 2009
 2009 Rebecca Caudill Young Readers Award Master List, (Illinois)
2008 NeNe Award List (Hawaii)
2008 Bluegrass Award Master List (Kentucky)
2007-08 Maine Student Book Award List
2007-08 Isinglass Teen Read List (New Hampshire)
2009 Rhode Island Teen Book Award List
2008-09 South Carolina Junior Book Award List
 A Horn Book Fanfare selection
A Junior Library Guild selection
A Scholatic Book Club selection

For more on Ellen Klages, visit her website at http://www.ellenklages.com/index.html.

This fictional story is a great tie-in and story starter for a lesson or unit of study on World War II.  Other great stories about the making of the bomb or life on “the Hill” include:

Broder, Bernice. Tales of Los Alamos: Life on the Mesa 1943-1945. Los Alamos Historical Society, 1997.

Conant, Jennet. 109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos. Simon & Schuster, 2005.

Mason, Katrina. Children of Los Alamos: An Oral History fo the Town Where the Atomic Age Began. Twayne Publishers, 1995.

Rhodes, Richard. The Making of the Atomic Bomb. Simon & Schuster, 1995.