Bomb (Graphic Novel): The Race to Build—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon
by Steve Sheinkin; illus. by Nick Bertozzi
Middle School, High School    Roaring Brook    256 pp.
1/23    9781250206732    $24.99
Paper ed.  9781250206749    $17.99

Sheinkin’s work of award-winning narrative nonfiction (Bomb, rev. 11/12) is here sharpened by the author’s own graphic adaptation—and portrayed through Bertozzi’s skillful cartooning—amplifying the drama, intrigue, and brutality irrevocably linked with the dawn of the atomic age. In five chapters, roughly spanning the years of WWII, Sheinkin cogently interconnects a massive cast of world leaders, scientists, military personnel, spies, and civilians across a mostly chronological account of the Manhattan Project. Unique for this new edition, Sheinkin chose the post-war interrogation of Harry Gold (a Philadelphia factory worker who spied for the Soviets) as the narrative’s through line. This clever bit of storytelling permits the omniscient narrator to seamlessly move between key events as they are discussed during Gold’s hardboiled questioning. The Golden Age–style illustrations generally adhere to an efficient three-tier, nine-panel page layout yet regularly shift in size, shape, and number to underscore significant moments and ideas. Notably, a stark white page is used to depict the detonation of the Little Boy atomic bomb over Hiroshima. Back matter includes an author’s note describing Sheinkin’s adaptation process, while an informative epilogue ends on a slightly more ominous note than the original: “How does this story end? We don’t know—because it’s still going on. And, like it or not, you’re in it.”

From the January/February 2023 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.