Where the Ground Meets the Sky

by Jacqueline Davies

Book Overview

It's 1944, and war is raging in Europe and the Pacific. Meanwhile, twelve-year-old Hazel is fighting her own battles somewhere in the New Mexico desert. Life has gotten increasingly complicated and lonely since Dad brought Mom and her to live on the Hill, an ugly place surrounded by a chain-link fence and barbed wire. A brilliant physicist, he is working hard on the Big Mystery, while poor Mom, who has always believed that secrets are bad for the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0761451870
• ISBN13: 9780761451877
• Release Date: January 2012
• Publisher: Skyscape
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.6" x 8.3"
• Age Range: 12 to 17 years
• Grade Range: Grades 7 to 12

Customer Reviews

Great read, powerful message

This is a book to give your kid this summer. It is a terrific read with characters a kid will relate to, a real world mystery and a story which will make them think. In 1942 Los Alamos was a practically empty mesa in the desert Southwest. By 1943 it was the home to the Manhattan Project and the families of the men and women creating the world's first atom bomb. We see this world through the eyes of 12 year old Hazel, the most interesting character I have run across since I met Sharon Creech's Sal in Walk Two Moons. No one knows what the Dad's and Mom's are working on and Hazel intends to find out. What she learns, and how she gets there, makes a very captivating and tight story.

A look at Los Alamos from a young girl who was "there"

A wonderfully written, informative, and thoughtful book on a subject that has not been extensively covered in books for young readers. Hazel is not your average twelve-year old in 1943. But then, neither is her family. Where The Ground Meets the Sky gives readers, young and old, an "up close and personal" glimpse into the family dynamics of living at Los Alamos while scientists were developing the "bomb". Reading almost like a mystery at times, we see the effects of this discovery from a different perspective -that of Hazel, her friends and her sensitive mother. An excellent source of discussion for both young and old.