The time is 1943. Dewey Kerrigan, age 11, joins her father to live in... Well, I can't say: it's a secret, as is the project on which Dewey's father is working. He and many scientists are working around the clock on a project they call "the gadget", which is supposed to end the war. Little do they know that it will change their lives profoundly.
The young people of the town have their challenges. They live in a town that officially does not exist. How do you apply for college or university when you go to a high school that has no address? Every person must have an ID card at all times; the town is surrounded by a patrolled fence. The hierarchy of each family is accentuated by not only the location of their home, but also by the design of the home to which they are assigned. In this setting, the novel deals with the struggle of Dewey and Suze Gordon, both social misfits, who try to find a place in their peer group.
The Green Glass Sea is an historical fiction novel that deals with the scientists stationed at Los Alamos, New Mexico, a town that did not officially exist, and the "Manhattan Project" on which they were working. Through very thorough research, the author of this young people's novel sets the reader very vividly in the early-mid 1940s with her clear descriptions of the mood of the time and of the homes and the common items found in them.
For teachers of middle years students, the book includes suggestions for activities, discussion and resource materials.
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Ellen Klages’s award-winning debut novel is now in paperback! It is 1943, and eleven-year-old Dewey Kerrigan is en route to New Mexico, to live with her mathematician father. Soon she ...
