White Sands, Red Menace

by Ellen Klages

Hardcover, 2008

Status

Available

Call number

813.6

Publication

Viking Juvenile (2008), Edition: First Edition (1 in number line), Hardcover, 352 pages

Description

It is 1946, and Dewey Kerrigan is now living near the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico with the Gordon family. Dewey and her "sister," Suze, share secrets, art, and science as they adjust to high school in an isolated desert town. Then, Dewey's long-lost mother, Rita Gallucci, reappears in their lives.

User reviews

LibraryThing member knielsen83

Sequel 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.

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LibraryThing member abbylibrarian

This 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!

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LibraryThing member readinggeek451

The 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.

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LibraryThing member delphica

Very 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.

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LibraryThing member lilibrarian

WWII 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.

LibraryThing member MarthaL

A great historical fiction book for upper elementary through junior high. Strong mother and daughter relationships. Suze's parents have come to act as parents for Dewey. Both talented scholarly girls have devised and inventive wall in the attic of the rented house in New Mexico. The mom can not

wait until all the research involved with the bomb and rocked experiments are over and she can get back to Berley.

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LibraryThing member creischl

sequel to The Green Glass Sea (which I loved). Gotta read it.

LibraryThing member framberg

Klages 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.

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LibraryThing member jkrossner

Sequel to "The Green Glass Sea" and equally excellent. (Longer review at bn.com.)

LibraryThing member satyridae

I 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.

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LibraryThing member ladycato

I 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.

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LibraryThing member TrgLlyLibrarian

Initially 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.

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LibraryThing member rgruberexcel

RGG: Love the characters; love the realistic family dynamics; love the science. And the historical backdrop is interesting, but doesn't get in the way of the story. Reading Interest: 10-12.

LibraryThing member lindamamak

Sequel to Green Glass Sea, following Suze and Dewey and how they adjusted to life after the Atom Bomb was dropped to end WW2.

LibraryThing member cindywho

Dewey 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.

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LibraryThing member elenaj

. . . maybe if she writes a third book in this series, there will be overt lesbian content. I'm hoping, anyway.

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