A heady whirl of science and spycraft made even more immediate (and frightening) by strong visuals.
A graphic version, losing none of the original’s high drama, of Sheinkin’s 2012 award-winning account of the supposedly secret Manhattan Project.
It’s a big story, but the author expertly juggles multiple plotlines to tell a coherent tale at breakneck speed, with all the significant encounters, quotes, and technological breakthroughs intact and a prose afterword to wrap up loose ends. Using a mix of emotionally intense face-to-face exchanges and silent reaction shots in his realistically drawn scenes, Bertozzi creates a properly cinematic flow as he portrays, on the one hand, the development and cataclysmic use of the first two atomic bombs and, on the other, how the Manhattan Project’s secrets were collected and transported from Los Alamos to the Soviets. Two figures stand out in particular from the teeming cast (which is not quite all-male, as several women played important roles on both sides): Harry Gold, a reluctant courier whose prominence is boosted here by several newly added scenes, and Robert Oppenheimer, who headed up the project’s research team and whose appalled recollection of a line from the Bhagavad-Gita in the wake of the Trinity test explosion—“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”—remains the Atomic Age’s most powerful and (probably) prophetic motto.
A heady whirl of science and spycraft made even more immediate (and frightening) by strong visuals. (Graphic history. 10-14)Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-20674-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
Hot on the heels of the well-received Leonardo da Vinci (2005) comes another agreeably chatty entry in the Giants of Science series. Here the pioneering physicist is revealed as undeniably brilliant, but also cantankerous, mean-spirited, paranoid and possibly depressive. Newton’s youth and annus mirabilis receive respectful treatment, the solitude enforced by family estrangement and then the plague seen as critical to the development of his thoughtful, methodical approach. His subsequent squabbles with the rest of the scientific community—he refrained from publishing one treatise until his rival was dead—further support the image of Newton as a scientific lone wolf. Krull’s colloquial treatment sketches Newton’s advances in clearly understandable terms without bogging the text down with detailed explanations. A final chapter on “His Impact” places him squarely in the pantheon of great thinkers, arguing that both his insistence on the scientific method and his theories of physics have informed all subsequent scientific thought. A bibliography, web site and index round out the volume; the lack of detail on the use of sources is regrettable in an otherwise solid offering for middle-grade students. (Biography. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-670-05921-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006
This glossy, colorful title in the “I Want To Be” series has visual appeal but poor organization and a fuzzy focus, which limits its usefulness. Each double-paged layout introduces a new topic with six to eight full-color photographs and a single column of text. Topics include types of environmentalists, eco-issues, waste renewal, education, High School of Environmental Studies, environmental vocabulary, history of environmentalism, famous environmentalists, and the return of the eagle. Often the photographs have little to do with the text or are marginal to the topic. For example, a typical layout called “Some Alternative Solutions” has five snapshots superimposed on a double-page photograph of a California wind farm. The text discusses ways to develop alternative forms of energy and “encourage environmentally friendly lifestyles.” Photos include “a healer who treats a patient with alternative therapy using sound and massage,” and “the Castle,” a house built of “used tires and aluminum cans.” Elsewhere, “Did You Know . . . ” shows a dramatic photo of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, but the text provides odd facts such as “ . . . that in Saudi Arabia there are solar-powered pay phones in the desert?” Some sections seem stuck in, a two-page piece on the effects of “El Niño” or 50 postage-stamp–sized photos of endangered species. The author concludes with places to write for more information and a list of photo credits. Pretty, but little here to warrant purchase. (Nonfiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-15-201862-X
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2000
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