Book-A-Day Almanac

From my point of view, author Steve Sheinkin is one of the most interesting young writers of narrative nonfiction today. Like most who choose to write nonfiction, he has an obsession, a passion, for history. But he excels in making history exciting for young readers, in bringing them into the action and adventure of whatever topic he handles. As someone who also creates nonfiction for children, I am in awe of his particular talent. He writes the kind of books I would love to write—and provides children with stories they want to read.

September is Read a New Book month, and Sheinkin’s 2012 title, Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon, kept me riveted for 260 pages.  The story begins and ends on May 22, 1950, with Harry Gold rushing around his bedroom, destroying seventeen years of evidence before the FBI arrives to arrest him. Even the verbs of this scene shout action—ripped, stumbled, grabbed, shoved—as if the text might have been written by the master of espionage fiction himself, John le Carre. Immediately Sheinkin brings us into the world of espionage,  counterintelligence, spies, secrets, and the race to build the atomic bomb. As he tells us “This is a big story. It’s the story of the creation—and theft—of the deadliest weapon ever invented.”

In the first part of the race, Robert Oppenheimer, America’s brilliant theoretical physicist, pulls together his dream team and races against the clock to develop an atomic bomb before the Germans do. But although perfect for this job, Oppenheimer was a Communist at one period of his life and hence has been the subject of investigation by the FBI since 1941. Realizing that Americans are developing this weapon, the Soviet Union’s KGB makes every effort to infiltrate Oppenheimer’s scientific team and obtain the plans for the bomb for themselves.  And as the book progresses Knut Haukelid of Norway and other members of the Norway resistance set out on an almost suicidal mission to blow up the plant creating “heavy water” needed for the German bomb. Why does anyone need to read spy thrillers when the actual history of this time period is so exciting?

Just as he did in The Notorious Benedict Arnold Sheinkin plays up the drama, develops characters, and takes readers to the heart of the action. In the process he makes the evolution of the atomic bomb seem like one of the most amazing stories every told. But rather than ending the book with the explosion of the first bomb, Sheinkin carries the story forward to its impact on Oppenheimer and to the world in general.

As someone who reads widely in World War II history, I found myself saying in every chapter, “I didn’t know that!” For young readers, ages eleven through fourteen, the entire saga will be news. If you want to pair a new fiction with nonfiction, Margi Preus’s Shadow on the Mountain will help round out the part of Sheinkin’s book that takes place in Norway. Even those who might not think themselves or their children the ideal audience for this particular topic, Bomb is worth reading and studying—just to show what an author can accomplish in narrative nonfiction.

Here’s a passage from Bomb: