Sheinkin, Steve Bomb: The race to build and steal the world’s most dangerous weapon
272 pgs. Flash Point, 2012.
$13.59. (Rating: PG)
This book is the
history of the Atomic bomb. From scientists –like Albert Einstein, to spies –like
Harry Gold, this book is choked full of historical figures and information.
I am a big
history buff, so I was excited to read this detailed story. But it was a drag
to read, just page after page of text, and more and more hard to remember ‘characters’.
Hardly any photographs and no text definition –like bolds or information blurbs,
which made it boring for me and even at times, hard to follow. This makes it totally
not a user friendly for students. On top of that, it skips around in time and
place, so it would be confusing for a student researcher –who would need to
read this start to finish to fully understand it –even to extract information. I
realize this book was highly rated by all the popular book reviews sites for
librarians, and is even up for an award, and I am sure it illuminates a
previously untold story –but I don’t recommend it for a school library.
HS –NOT
RECOMMENED Reviewer: Stephanie School Librarian & Author.
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3 comments:
THANK YOU! I haven't been able to get a copy of it, and given that the topic was interesting (and I like the author), I was half tempted to buy it without reading it. I will still try to get a copy to look at, but I won't be so quick to buy it.
I was SHOCKED to find out this won a Newbery Honor this year. What in the world were they thinking? This is one of the most unreadable non-fiction books for the K-12 market this year. I could come up with at least a dozen non-fiction titles that actually deserve the honor. Maybe some day I will be able to sit in on the meetings, because I really don't have much good to say about way too many of this year's award winners. Out of touch? Skewed criteria? I don't know.
There is also a literature unit based on this book for teachers. It is geared toward high school English or social studies classes and is based on Common Core standards. It can be found at Curriculum Aids or on Amazon.
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