Finding Good YA Science Books
Finding for high quality Young Adult (YA) Nonfiction science books is hard! I did find though that YALSA-young Adult Library Services Association has some excellent book lists and a nonfiction award with extensive ( http://www.ala.org/yalsa/nonfiction-award ) book lists that contain some science books. and I am working from them to read more high quality YA nonfiction. Much of it is history rather than science but there are some science gems on the lists and I m working my way through them.I also am finding and following some authors through various searches of my local library system and through the Smithsonian and NY Public library system. So here I am writing a book review on each of my YA books as I read them.
Bomb: The Race to Build – and Steal- the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon, written by Steve Sheinkin and published by Flash Point/Roaring Brook Press, an imprint of Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group. Winner of the YALSA nonfiction award for 2013.
I actually listened to this as an audio book, downloaded from my library in Gainesville. Some e-books put me to sleep and, in fact, I use them as an antidote to insomnia. But the Bomb was not a soporific by any means. Its chronology leads you clearly through the complex process of not only building the first atomic bomb during World war II but also gave you a picture of the politics and espionage that swirled around the desperate work of building a weapon of mass destruction. Both the Soviets and the Germans were spying on the Americans and the Soviets actually managed to get detailed plans that sped their bomb making process. These plans came from two top scientists working on the American bomb.The Americans also spied on the German bomb making efforts and the British and Norwegian allies managed to destroy a key facility in occupied Norway that Germany needed to build a bomb. American spies were even sent out to assassinate Werner Heisenberg but never gathered enough evidence to carry through the plot. As you can probably gather from my description this true life story reads like a spy thriller and the picture you get of the bomb making is a rich and exciting one. The story ends with the delivery of the bomb to two targets in Japan, Hiroshima and Nagasaki and with the horror many top scientist felt at what they had done. Unfortunately the military and political wings of the bomb making shut the scientists objections out of the process at that point and there was never a dialog at that level about the implications of the arms race to come.
The book gave me real insight into what kinds of writing you can do for Young Adults. Its political point of view and its sophisticated plot were eye openers for how much I could “be myself” in the writing of a book for teens. It is definitely one of those YA books that adults will enjoy too. I did!