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White Sands, Red Menace | 
 enlarge | Author: Ellen Klages
Publisher: Viking Juvenile
Category: Book
List Price: $16.99
Buy New: $11.55
You Save: $5.44 (32%)
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Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 233457
Media: Hardcover
Reading Level: Ages 9-12
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.8 x 1.4
ISBN: 0670062359
EAN: 9780670062355
ASIN: 0670062359
Publication Date: October 2, 2008
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Product Description
It is 1946, and the events of The Green Glass Sea have changed the worldand Dewey Kerrigans life. Shes now living near the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico with the Gordon family. Dr. Gordon is working on rockets that will someday go to the moon; Mrs. Gordon is working on stopping the Bomb. Meanwhile, Dewey and her sister, Suze, share secrets, art, and science as they adjust to high school in an isolated desert town. Then, like a different kind of dropped bomb, Deweys long-lost mother, Rita Gallucci, reappears in their lives. And she wants to take her daughter away.
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| Customer Reviews:
A good sequel, but read the first book first. January 5, 2009
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.
White Sands, Red Menace December 31, 2008
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!
Courtesy of Teens Read Too October 25, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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
 Wonderful Sequel October 17, 2008
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, if that's my biggest quibble with this book, 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.
"So how could ordinary blood be stronger?" October 16, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
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.
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