White Sands, Red Menace

This morning I finished White Sands, Red Menace by Ellen Klages, and feel as though I should apologize for not reading it when it first was published. I waited and waited for the sequel to The Green Glass Sea, but once it came out, I did this weird thing I sometimes do. I save books - knowing I was going to love it already, so I saved it for some future time when I really wanted to read it and wouldn't mind that there wasn't a great book waiting in my TBR stack anymore.

As I predicted, I did love White Sands, Red Menace. I loved getting reacquainted with Dewey and Suze and life in late 1940s America. In The Green Glass Sea, I loved that the two girls found each other to be friends and lived in a remarkable time and location in history. Dewey's father and Suze's parents were part of the making of the first atomic bomb. Now, in this sequel, they have moved to Alomogordo, NM. Dewey has been taken in by the Gordons after her father's death, and is surprised by the arrival of her mother, who left when Dewey was just an infant. Suze's parents are undergoing their own marital crisis as Philip begins work sending rockets into space, a part of the race to send the first man into space, and Terry sends out fliers about the devastation radiation can cause. Terry feels as though her career is on hold as she watches her husband's begin to take off. Suze and Dewey also experience some growing pains in their relationship as Suze struggles to share her parents' time with Dewey. Both girls make some of their own friends. Suze makes her first Hispanic friend, learning Spanish, and enjoying the big, happy family Ynez is a part of. Dewey, for her part, finds a boy she enjoys spending time with and finally feels as though she has left the nickname "Screwy Dewey" behind her.

Klages sequel was all I could have hoped for. As soon as I closed the last page today, I quickly checked Ellen Klages' website, hoping there would be information about a third book about these favorite characters and this time period.