Bomb Graphic novel : the race to build--and steal--the world's most dangerous weapon

Sheinkin's Sibert-winning Bomb (2012) made history come alive with compelling narrative threads and cliff-hanger teases instead of the usual bombardment of facts and dates. A little more than a decade later, this graphic novel adaptation tells the same captivating story of science and espionage but perhaps makes it all the more approachable in the process. Sheinkin makes full use of the graphic format--word and thought bubbles delve more into the thoughts and motivations of these complicated historical figures; the visual narrative also whittles down an already slick story even further, making it even more fast-paced than ever. Though it's unfortunate that the photos from the original are not in this version, Bertozzi's artwork nicely capture the emotions of the characters and the impact of the events; the eventual bombing of Hiroshima, for example, is hauntingly captured and deeply moving. Some may feel a bit of the magic of the original is lost in the transfer, but overall Sheinkin once again shows his versatility with this simple yet powerful format shift.

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." Patrick GallJanuary/February 2023 p.109 (c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.