The Compound by S. A. Bodeen

The Compound by S. A. Bodeen is about the Yanakakis family. Rex, the father, is as rich as they come and terrified of a nuclear war between the U.S. and Middle East. When his twins, Eddy and Eli, were born, he secretly began working on an underground compound to house his family in case of an emergency. On Eddy and Eli's 9th birthday, the family was out camping near the compound when they got word of an attack. In their hurry to reach safety, they left Eddy and Gram (their mother, Clea's mother) on the outside. The rest of the family, Rex, Clea, Eli, Eli's older sister Lexie, and his younger sister Terese, spend years living in the compound, believing that the world above has been destroyed by nuclear war and that everyone they knew and loved had died. Their father's plan was to spend 15 years in the compound before the automatic locks would allow the hatch to open. Unfortunately, things start going wrong about 6 years into their isolation. The food supplies start dwindling, the livestock they had was accidentally poisoned, the hydroponics lamps started dying, and Eli started to suspect that his father was hiding something.

I absolutely loved this book. I read the first half the day I checked it out from the library, and woke up at 5:00am on a Saturday to finish it! I couldn't stop thinking about it all night long, and just HAD to find out what happened. There were some shocking ideas in this story with twists and turns I never suspected. Even the very end held a surprise!

The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages

The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages is about 10 year old Dewey, the daughter of a scientist working on a top secret project for the U.S. government during WWII. After her grandmother has a stroke and is put into a home, Dewey goes to live with her father at the "Hill," a place that is so secret that it technically doesn't even exist. Many scientists live there and work on the "gadget" this is supposed to stop the war once and for all. Included among the scientists are Robert Oppenheimer and Richard Feynman. None of the kids who live at the Hill know what the scientists are working on, just that their parents are at the lab more than they are at home and that whatever gadget they are creating is important to the government.

I really enjoyed this book. It was recommended to me by a student and I can't wait to visit with her about it! Anyone who knows about the history of WWII knows that these two scientists were involved with creating the first atomic bomb, which eventually was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan at the end of the war. This book was really interesting because as the reader, I knew more than the characters about what would happen with the "gadget" and the consequences of using it on Japan. The main characters, Dewey and Suze were just trying to get through their own daily struggles as girls growing up during the 1940s on a top secret military base. They had the same types of experiences as girls growing up now - bullies, new friendships, family problems, etc.