Customer Reviews

White Sands, Red Menace

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When authors choose historical moments in time to set their stories against, surely the temptation must be to go for the big shiny moments, yes? The Alamo. The sinking of the Titanic. Gigantic wars. Dramatic moments in human history are the natural lure and there's nothing wrong with that. It's natural. So what are we to make of the author that eschews all that for the seemingly less interesting eras? Say, for example, 1946? World War II is over and America hasn't fully bought into McCarthyism quite yet. There aren't any spies or big battles to cover. Instead there's something more insidious. The feel of a nation trying to do what is right, but also getting sucked into the fear and paranoia that will cause countless problems a couple years down the line. To write something this subtle without boring a child audience takes a deft hand, and author Ellen Klages is up to the challenge. Having already established her setting and characters in the Scott O'Dell Award winning book The Green Glass Sea, Klages now turns her sights on the aftermath of WWII in America and the effects of the time period on cultural and personal relations. A little slow to start, once this sequel gets moving there's no stopping it.

It's been eight months since World War II ended. Eight months and in that time Dewey Kerrigan has fitted in nicely with her friend Suze Gordan's family. Now they've moved from Los Alamos to Alamogordo, New Mexico because of Mr. Gordon's current work on the government's rocket program. Things are progressing fairly quickly for the girls as well. They're both still fascinated by mixing Suze's artistic talent with Dewey's scientific bent, but they're also growing up. Suze makes friends with a Mexican-American girl and her family, Dewey is friends (or more?) with a boy who shares her technical bent. But in the meantime tensions are brewing. Is Dewey closer to Suze's scientific mom than she is? Are Mr. and Mrs. Gordan going to divorce over their different beliefs? Why is Mrs. Gordan feeling so ill? And who is this strange motorcycle riding woman who's just driven into town looking for Dewey of all people? Mysteries are answered and realities changed in an America where nothing is as straightforward as it seems.

The book begins slowly, I just have to tell you right now. Unless children have read its predecessor, I'm not altogether certain they'll stick with the first few chapters where nothing much really happens unless they're pushed a little. Yet as it goes on, White Sands builds its own momentum. But to find the right child audience for this book, you have to know your reader. In Green Glass Sea Dewey is reading Caddie WoodlawnCaddie Woodlawn and only enjoying the section where Caddie starts fixing clocks. There are lots of kids like Dewey out there who prefer novels with science, non-fiction, politics, and realism. These are the children that visibly cringe when you move a Harry Potter novel into their physical sphere. The ones who find a great deal of satisfaction in reading about process. And there really is something wholly satisfying in watching people do what they love even if it isn't what you personally love too. I'm not saying that fantasy readers won't also find a lot to enjoy in this title but personally I think that it will be particularly beloved by a very particular type of reader.

As for the age range there are certainly some older themes at work here. Parents whose marriage may be on the rocks because of political beliefs. First kisses. Whether blood really is as strong as everyone says. That said, it's rendered in kid-friendly language, so I don't think an intelligent ten or eleven-year-old would have much difficulty with the reading.

When a historical novel feels contemporary because the emotions and characters feel like they exist in the here and now, that's the mark of a great book, my friend. One of Klages' real talents is the balance of the past and the present. She takes great pains to remain historically accurate. That's why the Author's Note at the back includes a bibliography of titles discussing the 1940s, the atomic bomb, spinthariscopes, the V-2 rocket program, and White Sands National Monument. There's even additional information on El Paso's first TV station (it comes up in the plot) and Yuri Gagarin, the first Russian cosmonaut. As for the characters, the leap between two points of view (Dewey and Suze) without traipsing into first person territory is difficult and yet done seamlessly here. You never feel jerked from one person's view to another's. This book may have its basis in the past, but it feels fresh to read it today.

My husband is a screenwriter with a penchant for writing noirs. In his research he's done a lot of study on Operation Paperclip, the O.S.S.-U.S. Military employment of scientists from Nazi Germany just after the Second World War. Basically, it was when America hired Nazi scientists to work for us instead of the Russians. It's not the kind of thing many people know, and I've certainly never seen it mentioned in children's literature. It was fascinating to find not only a mention of this in White Sands but actual Nazi scientists interacting with the characters. So when Dewey asks why Nuremberg even happened ("How come the army executed these Nazis, and not the V-2 ones?") it's a completely legitimate question that people are still asking to this day. Not that the kids in the book ever find an answer to it.

Though it's not at the center of the story, the Gordons' debate over nuclear proliferation is also fascinating. Mr. Gordon explains patiently to Dewey that this is scientific progress and cannot, nay, should not be stopped. Mrs. Gordon however sees this as the very cause of wars and not the prevention. And Klages, to her credit, never really dings the bell and declares one side a winner over another. Still, you'll probably figure out which take she prefers by the story's end.

Like I say, maybe it's not a book for every kid out there but certainly it has an audience. Readers who read Green Glass Sea and wondered how Suze and Dewey would fare in the same home will find the answers. Readers who enjoy this period in history, any period in history, rockets, exploding atoms, science, or any or all of that will find something to enjoy here. Great writing, a fascinating plot, and female road hogs (I'm not kidding). What's not to love? A great follow-up by an accomplished writer.

Rocket this. Atomic-powered that. They are all the rage in the United States during the post-War era.

Dewey and Suze have moved with Suze's scientist parents to New Mexico. Phil, Suze's dad, works endlessly on a new project -- a rocket that could eventually land on the moon while Terry, Suze's mom, obsesses over her mission against the Bomb which both she and Phil created.

Dewey and Suze love working on "the wall" in their new bedroom. They tinker, build, and add more and more to the carefully constructed contraptions, even though girls aren't supposed to be interested in things like that. When Dewey's long-lost mother shows up, Dewey struggles to understand the meaning of family.

Take a trip back in time and be fascinated by people and events that created history and helped shape the world as we know it.

Reviewed by: Dianna Geers

This was supposed to be for my daughter but I ended up reading it and yes, shedding a tear or two -- or three throughout the read. There are a lot of Dewey's in the world that are a bit withdrawn, nerdy, and, like we all are at times, struggling with life. Dewey, to me, is a very presentable character. She's not Harry Potter. To me, she feels far more real that Harry.
What makes this read so wonderful is the characterizations. We both get an everyday snapshot of life in the late 1940's and we get small moments that are often so rare in books where we see how much everyday life can shape us. It allows us to slowly absorb the characters and their actions.
What also makes this book special is how dark it really is beneath the surface. Discussions of abortion, the atomic bomb, teenage pregnancy, racism, sexism, propaganda and so forth all percolate to the surface without dominating the story. In essence the themes are there but never become the focus of the story.
I think the author's greatest gift is her ability to examine the darkest of themes without ever becoming melodramatic making it a 'disease of the week' drama. I love this book from page one to the end and hope the story of Dewey and Suzie continues.

I checked out the first book in this series "The Green Glass Sea" at the library. I thought my daughter would enjoy it--and we could read it together since it came with the book on CD as well. She was not interested, but I was so enamored with the story line I had to finish it. The books helped me understand the world my grandmother and mother grew up in and why they have the views about life they have today. I hope when she gets a little older maybe she will read it.

As an intellectually arrogant, middle-aged white male heterosexual college professor, I don't, as a rule, read "young adult fiction" by lesbian authors from San Francisco, but here I am, not only confessing to reading two in a year, but writing a review on Amazon.com praising them to the skies. Both The Green Glass Sea (Ellen Klages' first book) and White Sands, Red Menace (her second, building on the characters she developed in the first), are extraordinary, simply extraordinary. They are the best books I have ever read on Los Alamos, the Manhattan Project, the dawn of the Atomic Age, and what it felt like being a kid in America in the middle of the last century. They are your assigned reading for the summer, and I will expect your book reports by August 7. You will get extra credit if you send Ellen Klages an email imploring her to get on with her third book immediately. Clearly it must be set in Berkeley, E. O. Lawrence must hover in the background of the plot, and Dewey and Suze's mom will undoubtedly run afoul of the Loyalty Oath.

It's such a pleasure to read a sequel that lives up to and possibly even surpasses the original. White Sands, Red Menace, Ellen Klages's follow up to The Green Glass Sea is a wonderful continuation of Suze Gordon and Dewey Kerrigan's story.

When The Green Glass Sea ends, Dewey's dad has died and the Gordons have taken her in. With World War II over and the atom bomb no longer a secret, they move from Los Alamos to Alamogordo, New Mexico, where Suze's dad is one of the General Electric scientists working with the Army to perfect a rocket that can go into space and carry a nuclear bomb. After seeing the results of their work in Los Alamos, Suze's mom, Terry Gordon, works to let the world know of the dangers of atomic bombs. She's fighting a rising tide of Americans' fascination with all things atomic.

Suze and Dewey are starting all over again at a new school and hoping to fit in better than they did at Los Alamos. They have each other, but they hope to make new friends as well. Klages has done a masterful job of capturing the time period and the small town in New Mexico in which the story takes place. It was a time when kids had a lot of freedom to roam, time on their hands and not a lot of money or electronic attractions. This often meant they had to get creative to kill their boredom.

Dewey's interest and ability in science pairs well with Suze's interest and ability in art. In their attic room, they go to work on a wall that showcases both their talents. The story moves at a leisurely pace that's somewhat like the slow summer days the girls experience at the beginning of the book, and I found myself matching my reading pace to their exploits. I also found myself dreaming of a time that was simpler in many ways and more complicated in others.

There are also plenty of family dynamics for mothers and daughters to discuss: the tension between Suze's parents as her mom becomes more pacifist and her dad is caught up in the atomic craze. The tension between the two girls over parental love and attention and what makes a family. The tension between whites and those of Mexican descent in this small New Mexican town. It all adds up to a great book to read and talk about.

Unlike the Green Glass Sea, which was more centered around Los Alamos and WW2, White Sands, Red Menace focuses more on the characters. Some things slipped through the cracks- for example, Suze becomes friends with a Mexican American girl named Ynez. From reading the book, I did not get a great sense of what all that meant- I couldn't even tell if they went to the same school. There are some references to it being a bigger deal then it appears, but nothing auctully happens.

I loved the descritions of all the advertisements- how Suze is annoyed by breakfast cereal being 'atomic!'. There are many little details like that that really show you what the world was like at that point.

Terry Gordon is fighting to "control the demon", as she puts it, writing letters to politicans and telling the public about what everything means. Meanwhile, Phil Gordon is working for the rocket program, telling Terry that she should "look ahead" instead of behind. I think a little more time could be spent on this as well- a married couple going in opposite directions.

All in all, this book was lots of fun to read and re-read, giving details of a period in time that was skipped in my history class. Because we all know how the cold war ended- and the characters don't. (This is another thing Klages could have made more mention of; that the characters are living in fear that they will die at any moment.)

_White Sands, Red Menace_ picks up where Klages' earlier book, _The Green Glass Sea_, left off. The bombs have been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and Dewey Kerrigan has moved with her foster family, the Gordons, to Alamogordo, where Phil Gordon is working at the White Sand Missile Range, and Terry Gordon, who has given up her chemistry career for a year for Phil, is helping the scientists' movement to control and limit use of the atomic bomb. Dewey and Suze Gordon are still learning to live with each other, to fit in at their new school, and to find a place for themselves in a society which privileges boys over girls.

As with _The Green Glass Sea_, I was impressed by Klages' lucid style and her detailed historical setting, and I was pleased to spend more time seeing Dewey and Suze develop. I did think the book lacked some of the focus of _The Green Glass Sea_; none of the many plot threads quite got as much time as I'd have liked, particularly those dealing with Suze's friendship with a Mexican-American girl and with Terry Gordon's political activism. The book ends with not every question answered (though nothing is left as a cliffhanger), and I'd certainly love to read another one, if Klages writes one.

From www.mrsmagooreads.com

Title: White Sands, Red Menace
Author: Ellen Klages
Grade: B+
Ideal Audience: Boys & Girls, 10+
Previous book in the series: The Green Glass Sea
*Spoiler Warning* The following review contains spoilers for the previous book in the series

Summary: World War II has ended, and now that Dewey's father is dead, she has moved in with her new best friend, Suze. The two love working on the contraption "the wall", and as Dewey adds in twists and turns, Suze turns it into a work of art.

The two girls lead separate lives as well. All is not okay with Suze's scientist parents: her father is always out of the house, working on a new project, and her mother is busy educating the public about the horror of nuclear bombs. The tension escalates throughout the novel, and to make matters worse, Suze feels like Dewey is stealing all of Suze's mom's attention.

Meanwhile, Dewey is frustrated with her new school, as she is living in a time when girls are expected only to cook and clean. Huge changes come to Dewey's life during the book, such as a possible crush and the sudden appearance of an important person in Dewey's life.

My thoughts: Anyone who likes historical fiction is sure to love White Sands, Red Menace. While reading, I got the feeling that it was deeply researched, and I also loved the characterization of Dewey and Suze. The only reason this book didn't garner an A was because it dragged at times, causing me to lose interest.

White Sands, Red Menace is appropriate for both teens and adults. While it is appropriate for younger (advanced) readers, I'm not quite sure how long their attention will be held. I, however, am definitely looking forward to more from Ellen Klages!

I was all set to love this book. Green Glass Sea was incredible. Portable Childhoods was amazing. White Sands, Red Menace was just OK. It was a sequel and not really much more than that. It was nice to revisit the characters I had grown to love in the original, but not much happened.

In many ways, this isn't surprising. World War II is a much more interesting backdrop than the early Cold War, especially from the point of view of children. There was some attempt at drama involving the parents, and it sort of worked, but it wasn't as powerful as what happened to Dewey's father in the first book. The racism issues were interesting, but the Nazi aspects were sadly lacking. The economic and technological changes were neat to consider, but weren't as interesting as the creation of a new technology from scratch.

Really, this story serves as more of a coda for Green Glass Sea than a standalone book. It's worth reading if you're particularly interested in the 1950s and the early days of rocket flight. However, when you get right down to it, I'm not. It was a fun read, but not fantastic, and I was hoping for fantastic.