Audiobook8 hours
White Sands, Red Menace
Written by Ellen Klages
Narrated by Julie Dretzin
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
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About this audiobook
Ellen Klages' debut novel, The Green Glass Sea, was lavished with praise, including the Scott O'Dell Award for historical fiction. This sequel continues the story of science enthusiast Dewey Kerrigan, now living with her friend Suze's family in Alamogordo, New Mexico, after her father's death. Against the backdrop of America's quest for the moon, Dewey tries to find her place in the world.
Related to White Sands, Red Menace
Titles in the series (2)
The Green Glass Sea Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5White Sands, Red Menace Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
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Reviews for White Sands, Red Menace
Rating: 3.9999999147058825 out of 5 stars
4/5
68 ratings14 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A story of two early teens living post WW II in the scientific community working on rockets and bombs. It was just ok. Not a lot of history, no tension between the parties and I'm not sure it was completely edited because there were words that seemed out of place and made a difficult reading. Not a keeper for me.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5WWII is over, and Dewey Kerrigan is living with her friend Suze's family in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Dr. Phil Gordon is developing space rockets, and Dr. Marjorie Gordon is trying to educate people about the evils of the atomic bomb. Then Dewey's long-lost mother appears.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5. . . maybe if she writes a third book in this series, there will be overt lesbian content. I'm hoping, anyway.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dewey and Suze follow history to New Mexico where Suze's Dad is working on rockets at White Sands. The Red Menace isn't much a part of the story, it's mostly about the relationship between the two girls and Suze's mother - which is difficult and loving. It's a good story about family set against an interesting part of US history.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Initially the dialogue in this book felt awkward, but soon I realized that might be because it felt like a book I would have attempted to write in middle school. It got eerily familiar fast, because it centered on girls raised by scientists and growing up with The Bomb as a part of their lives. I looked into Ellen Klages' bio, expecting her to have grown up in Alamogordo, NM, but she didn't. She just researched her book really really well. She got quite specific with the look and layout of the town. Authors that get very specific about real places can sometimes be aggravating; anyone who hasn't been to that particular place feels left out of some insider's perspective. Having been to Alamogordo a couple times, I liked it.
I think the book did a good job of presenting life as a girl in the late 1940s, especially life in southern New Mexico at that time, and the coming-of-age experiences of the middle-school girls. It resonated with me.
One final positive: I was really relieved that the many conflicts in this book were generally resolved productively, within a chapter or two of their appearance. Many juvie and teen fiction novels let the conflict build until it bursts open in an angry, violent, angsty manner. That makes for stressful reading, for me. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I read the first book in this series, Green Glass Sea, a few months ago and was excited to read onward. While this book doesn't carry the same tension as the first--the war is over, the Manhattan Project was a success--it still does a good job of balancing historical fiction, middle grade/teenage drama without being too overwrought, and a very positive girls-can-do-science-too message. The latter is one of the things I love about these books. It really establishes fantastic female role models for girls who love science, and shows how women in that time period had to truly fight for respect.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I cracked this sequel to The Green Glass Sea with no little trepidation. I've come to expect sophomore slump from YA books lately. I needn't have fretted; Klages hit this one out of the park. I think I like it better than TGGS despite the absence of Dick Feynman. Werhner von Braun (offstage) is hardly a substitute. Imagine, that's my biggest quibble with this book, that's how good it is.
Klages covers family and its arcane permutations while ably handling adolescence, what it was like to be a nontraditional girl in the 40s, the repercussions of Hiroshima, and how it felt to know that the people your dad worked with had been Nazis in the not too distant past. And a first kiss, too. There were so many balls in the air in this book it makes my mind boggle that the flow of the narrative was seamless. A masterpiece.
Highly recommended. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sequel to "The Green Glass Sea" and equally excellent. (Longer review at bn.com.)
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Klages follow-up to Green Glass Sea finds her protagonists, Dewey and Suze, in White Sands, New Mexico, where Suze's father works on building rockets and her mother joins other concerned scientists to educate the world about the dangers of the atomic bomb. Dewey and Suze navigate a new school, where neither of them fit the expectations for girls in that time, and their relationship, which is complicated by Dewey's closeness with Suze's mother. Tensions never really get out of hand, nor are the ethical issues about the bomb, speaking up for what you believe, and American rocket science's unholy collaboration with Nazis, given thorough treatment. While it was a pleasure to revisit these characters and to see them mature, I was left wondering about the next step in their lives, especially knowing that the second wave of the feminist movement was still far off. Suze and Dewey - and Mrs. Gordon, for that matter - face challenges and choices that would be interesting to follow.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5WWII is over, and Dewey Kerrigan is living with her friend Suze's family in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Dr. Phil Gordon is developing space rockets, and Dr. Marjorie Gordon is trying to educate people about the evils of the atomic bomb. Then Dewey's long-lost mother appears.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Very satisfying sequel to Green Glass Sea, Suze and Dewey are now teenagers starting high school in Alamogordo after the war while Suze's father is working on Werner von Braun's rockets. If possible, I liked the girls even better than in Green Glass Sea. It's a great demonstration of characters aging well. They're still recognizable as the same kids from the first book, but have changed and grown in realistic and believable ways.The downside - one of the things I loved the most about Green Glass Sea is how neutrally issues are presented, at least on the surface. As a reader, you really get all the tools to draw your own conclusions about the development of the atomic bomb. White Sands, Red Menace is a little more blatant about which side is right. Dr. Gordon's anti-nuke campaign is obviously passionate and caring; whenever her husband Dr. Gordon gets some air time for the opposing view, he sounds like a ninny. Okay, now it sounds like I am complaining about not loving The Bomb enough. Even though I agree with Terry, it comes across as too preachy for me.Grade B+Recommended: Definitely to anyone who enjoyed Green Glass Sea. And these should be read in order. They should get some sort of prize for Best Use Of Historical Settings for Telling a Story - Los Alamos for the first, and Alamogordo for this one.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The sequel to "The Green Glass Sea" sees Suze and Dewey living in Alamogordo, New Mexico, where Dr. Gordon is working on rockets. Mrs. Gordon is heavily involved in the anti-atomic movement and anxious to return to her own work in Berkeley. Meanwhile, the girls are coming to terms with each other and finding new friends.This doesn't have quite the weight of the first book, nor the mystery (for the girls, and quite possibly for young readers) of what is being made on the Hill. Nevertheless, it is an interesting look at a little-known time and an interesting coming-of-age tale. The Atomic Age has begun, television is just around the corner, and their world is changing in many ways, large and small.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This sequel to The Green Glass Sea continues the stories of Dewey and Suze as they begin 8th grade in Alamogordo, NM in 1946. Ellen Klages captures perfectly the growing tension and paranoia of Americans at that time, while still creating compelling characters. The book's told in a series of vignettes, which is not normally a style I enjoy, so it's a great testament to the writing and detailed, authentic setting that I enjoyed it as much as I did. If you liked The Green Glass Sea, pick this one up!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sequel to The Green Glass Sea. This book continues the story of Dewey and Suze, brought together by the war and the Atomic Bomb. Both of their fathers worked on the bomb together, but Dewey's dad died, which left Suze's family with the choice to take her in. They're in a new town with new situations and things are not exactly happy after the war. Overall, I love the characters and the time period, a period that is not written about often - post WWII.