As
a change of pace, I read a couple of nonfiction books that I have
been interested in reading for a while. Both books deal with the
development and usage of war technology. In Mr. Lincoln's High-Tech
War: How the North Used the Telegraph, railroads, surveillance
Balloons, Iron-Clads, High-Powered Weapons, and More to Win the Civil
War, the authors Thomas B. Allen and Roger Macbride Allen explain the
development of these various items and how they were used. I was
fascinated by the fact that Abraham Lincoln was a great supporter of
these new technologies but his generals preferred to wage war without
them. With many photographs, cartoons, and diagrams you feel like you
are right in the midst of the Civil War.
My
second nonfiction choice was Steve Sheinkin's Bomb - The Race to
Build-and Steal- the World's Most Dangerous Weapon. The book tells
the development of the atomic bomb and its use on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki in World War II. I learned that Albert Einstein communicated
with President Franklin Roosevelt urging him to sponsor the
development of the atomic bomb. I learned how Robert Oppenheimer was
chosen to run the project and gathered his team. And I learned about
the spying by the Soviet Union, our ally, to gain this new technology
that led to the Cold War of the 1950s and 1960s. Here also
photographs and diagrams help you follow the progress of "the
gadget" and meet the people involved. This book is also a
nominee for the 2015 Rebecca Caudill Young Readers Book Award.
Look
for both of these books in the Blogged Book display when you come
back to school next week.
