Five starred reviews!

Mother-son team Jonah and Jeanette Winter bring to life one of the most secretive scientific projects in history—the creation of the atomic bomb—in this “astonishing…beautifully told” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) picture book.

At a former boy’s school in the remote desert of New Mexico, the world’s greatest scientists have gathered to work on the “Gadget,” an invention so dangerous and classified they cannot even call it by its real name. They work hard, surrounded by top security and sworn to secrecy, until finally they take their creation far out into the desert to test it, and afterward the world will never be the same.

About The Author

Photo courtesy of the author

Jonah Winter

Jonah Winter is the award-winning author of more than forty nonfiction picture books that promote environmental awareness and social and racial justice. Among them are The Snow Man; The Little Owl & the Big Tree: A Christmas Story; Oil; The Secret Project; Ruth Bader Ginsburg: The Case of R.B.G. vs. Inequality; My Name is James Madison Hemings; Barack; The Founding Fathers!; and Lillian’s Right to Vote, a Jane Addams Children’s Book Award recipient and Kirkus Prize finalist.

About The Illustrator

Drawing by Jeanette Winter

Jeanette Winter

Jeanette Winter is a celebrated picture book creator whose acclaimed works include The Snow Man; The Little Owl & the Big Tree: A Christmas Story; Oil; The Secret Project; and Diego, all written by Jonah Winter, and her own Biblioburro: A True Story from Colombia; Nasreen’s Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan; and Our House Is on Fire: Greta Thunberg’s Call to Save the Planet, which has been translated into twenty-one languages.

Product Details

Publisher: Beach Lane Books (February 7, 2017)
Length: 40 pages
ISBN13: 9781481469142
Ages: 5 - 8

Raves and Reviews

"Jonah Winter’s honest depiction, accompanied by the vivid and detailed artwork, tells the creation of the atomic bomb with expertise and tact... This is an excellent historical, as well as scientific, picture book offering opportunity for rich discussion among student readers and educators. Highly Recommended."

– School Library Connection, May/June 2017

"An author’s note supplies more information about the event and its repercussions, but the text itself, concise and thorough, stands on its own, its dispassionate accounting just the right counterpoint to the contained terror in the art."

– The Horn Book *STARRED REVIEW*, March/April 2017

"A picture book’s powerful potential to reach multiple audiences at varied levels of prior knowledge and understanding is on full display here, and adults tasked with shepherding youth of all ages through the darkest episodes of history will appreciate so moving and versatile a guide. The youngest audience will learn the facts, but the sinister implications a secret government project and the unimaginable consequences of covert research will impel an older readership to confront their grim inheritance."

– Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books *STARRED REVIEW*, January 2017

"Sure to spark conversation about ethics and the use of nuclear weaponry, this powerful book demands a wide readership."

– Publishers Weekly *STARRED REVIEW*, 12/5/16

"[T]he quiet—and then abruptly explosive—tone is spot-on, cultivating both curiosity and unease, as if this is a secret we’d rather not know. Expect plenty of questions after sharing this with children, though it’s likely that’s precisely the point."

– Booklist *STARRED REVIEW*, 12/1/16

"Jonah Winter's text is eloquent, and his mother's acrylic-and-pen illustrations evoke a beautiful landscape in danger if the scientists' contraption works.... An astonishing way to lay the groundwork for such works for older readers as Steve Sheinkin's Bomb (2012), this is a beautifully told introduction to a difficult subject."

– Kirkus Reviews *STARRED REVIEW*, 11/1/16

A moving, nonpreachy springboard for older elementary grade and middle school discussions of the Manhattan Project or nuclear weapons in general.

– School Library Journal, January 2017