THE BOMB
by Theodore Taylor
Sorry Rinamu, 14, is happy to see the end of the Japanese occupation of his people's island of Bikini. But in the aftermath of Hiroshima, the US military wants to test the atomic bomb further and have decided that the Bikini atoll is the perfect site. When Sorry's people agree to relocate, he makes his own plans to defy the military. Based on a historical event at which Taylor (Timothy of the Cay, 1993, etc.) was present, this novel has a powerful inevitability that underscores all Sorry's frustration and fear. The understated, matter-of-fact recital gives already exciting and horrifying events more power, ever-building to a breathtaking climax. Interspersed with brief paragraphs about the development of the bomb and concluding with a factual epilogue, this delivers readers into the middle of a harrowing, if neglected, piece of history. (Fiction. 12+)