Steve Sheinkin does it again! He weaves a tale out of facts that you'd swear were fiction and tricks you into spending the entire afternoon reading until, somehow, you're done with the book! This book had terrifying aspects to it insofar as I never realized how close we as a world had come to WWIII and nuclear devastation. Brilliant and relevant.

Sheinkin tells the story of the Cold War, and the stories leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis. I found the book information, but even more, it was a page turner that I could not put down. The information presented could have been in a spy thriller. My history classes never explained how close the world was to nuclear devastation.

I had one of my students read this to review, since he loves this era and it lent him a sense of responsibility....these are his thoughts.

One thing I didn't know until I read this book was that the Russians put messages in the tiny holes in coins.
I also liked how the author put pictures in the book of the Time Life magazine and the war bunkers.
But one thing I didn't like was there was no time line in the book and no map showing the flight path of the U2 plane. It was one of the most in depth book on the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis I've ever read.

Teacher's note -- he's a visual kid, but it's a good point. It'd probably be easier for kids to read with a timeline and / or map...extra notes to help organize.

As a teen librarian, Bomb is one of the books that I recommend most often to young adult readers and their parents. Impossible as it is to believe, this book may be even better. I adored it and can't wait to share it with my library customers.