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The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages – Review by Shannon Houghton
When I was growing up as a reader, I thought there were four distinct eras that historical fiction existed in:
- Westward Expansion (Laura Ingalls Wilder stuff, Caddie Woodlawn)
- World War II Jewish experiences (Number the Stars, Anne Frank)
- Colonial/Revolutionary times (the Felicity series, The Fifth of March)
- Medieval times (All of the Karen Cushman ever written)
I wonder if I’m the only person who got stuck in that line of thinking, or if that’s part of the reason so many people have historical fiction as their book gap challenge?
I love bits of history that haven’t been explored as often in kidlit. Al Capone Does my Shirts blew my mind, with its story of a family living Alcatraz Island in the 1930s, and that’s the book that came to mind when I heard about The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages.
The Green Glass Sea takes place during World War II, and it follows bookish tinkering badass Dewey Kerrigan as she heads west to live with her dad in Los Alamos. He’s working on the Manhattan project, as is everyone else living in Los Alamos (which doesn’t officially exist).
Real life scientific characters make cameos, including my personal favorite, Richard Feynman. Dewey deals with coming-of-age issues and fitting in as a girl in a world that hasn’t quite figured out young ladies can be amazing engineers. But the history itself is fascinating, and with the huge attention being given to this year’s multi-medalist Bomb, the time is right to read or reread The Green Glass Sea.
Additional resources for your consideration:
Anita Silvey, in her infinite wisdom, featured The Green Glass Sea here.
SPOILER ALERT: The last chapter of The Green Glass Sea was originally published in the September 2004 issue of Strange Horizons.
Further SPOILER ALERT: Watch Ellen Klages read from the end of The Green Glass Sea here:
Some related books of interest:
Al Capone Does My Shirts, Gennifer Choldenko.
Similar premise, in that you have families living in an isolated government-y area.
Bomb: The Race to Build – and Steal – the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon, Steve Sheinkin.
Obvious reasons.
Feynman was just a young punk guy working on the Manhattan project before he went on to do scads of amazing things. Like. INCREDIBLE things. Probably one of the most incredible figures in modern science.
Dignifying Science, Jim Ottaviani.
Graphic novel biography of neat women in science, by the same author as Feynman.
White Sands, Red Menace, Ellen Klages.
A few years after The Green Glass Sea was published, Klages released this sequel, which is a great book, but isn’t quite as amazing in a historical-fictiony-sense, if you know what I mean. Takes place right after WWII ends and the atomic age uneasily begins.
Countdown, Deborah Wiles.
Takes place later than The Green Glass Sea, but has a similar feel and the same type of rad female lead character. My pick for the 2012 Newbery Medal. Part one in The Sixties Trilogy, which frankly needs to have book two published RIGHT NOW. Extra resources for Countdown are here.
The Loud Silence of Francine Green, Karen Cushman.
Also takes place slightly later than The Green Glass Sea; has many of the same themes as White Sands, Red Menace and Countdown.
Shannon Houghton is a 2nd and 3rd grade teacher living in Seattle. She loves learning about the history of science, and her current obsessions include Buckminster Fuller, Jacques Cousteau’s SEALAB, and computer programming pioneer Grace Hopper.
Nerdy Book Club 
I found this book on a bargain table and picked it up for my classroom library. I loved it! My grandfather was one of the blue collar workers on the Manhattan project in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. My dad grew up in a fenced city, a city where spies visited schools to see if the children knew what their parents did at work even though the workers had no clue what their routine work would produce. In many ways this book was like revisiting my dad’s childhood.
Bomb is great too. It’s been an easier sell for me than The Green Glass Sea, simply because it’s non-fiction. Sadly, my students don’t love historical fiction as much as I do.
Thanks for the review and the recommendations. Countdown, here I come!
Great choice! The Green Glass Sea is a wonderful work of historical fiction. I wrote about using it with Steve Sheinkin’s Bomb to meet CC standards on my blog, http://readingtothecore.wordpress.com/2013/02/18/its-monday-wha…-you-reading-2/
The Green Glass Sea is one of my all-time favorite books. It’s the book that got my nonfiction science-loving son interested in novels. It’s also the book that got me started on my “sciency fiction” crusade. The science is beautifully integrated into this book, both on the larger, atomic bomb level and on the smaller, Dewey-as-scientist level. (Another favorite historical sciency fiction is The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly.)
Ohhhh, yes, a perfect pairing!
Fabulous review and resources! A few of these are missing from my library- time to fill in some gaps!
I became familiar with The Green Glass Sea when it was the book chosen for One Book One Nebraska four years ago and have been reading it with my 6-8 classes ever since! It works well with cross curricular projects, as well. We have the sequel to the book, White Sands Red Menace, in our school library – my students line up to read it!
Thanks for the shout-out!
Penguin has developed a full curriculum unit for The Green Glass Sea, as part of their Classroom Classics series. Here’s the link:
Click to access LessonPlans_GreenGlassSea%28Final%29_12.pdf
Great post, Shannon! I really enjoyed this book, too. I really love historical fiction that takes us to less common places in time. I have read a lot of phenomenal historical fiction books set in WWII but I also love books that give me a glimpse into time I may be familiar with but that really expands my knowledge of a time period. I was recently in San Francisco and saw Alcatraz. I didn’t take the tour but seeing it from land gave me the chills. Having read Al Capone Does My Shirts gave me a totally different perspective of the island. Eli the Good is one of my all time favorites, maybe because my dad is a Vietnam veteran, but definitely because of the strong writing that allows readers to connect with the characters.
I love following what you love. You have great taste. Thanks for sharing. I have been very invested in learning more historical fiction as well.
I read The Green Glass Sea last fall and loved it! Your review certainly captured my view of the book! Thanks!