In this award-winning debut novel, 11-year-old Dewey Kerrigan is traveling west on a train to live with her scientist father, but no one will tell her exactly where he is. It is 1943 and her destination is New Mexico, where scientists are working on the Manhattan Project.

In this award-winning debut novel, 11-year-old Dewey Kerrigan is traveling west on a train to live with her scientist father, but no one will tell her exactly where he is. It is 1943 and her destination is New Mexico, where scientists are working on the Manhattan Project.

A heartfelt story of a budding friendship in the thick of the war--winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction

It's 1943, and eleven-year-old Dewey Kerrigan is en route to New Mexico to live with her mathematician father. Soon she arrives at a town that, officially, doesn't exist. It is called Los Alamos, and it is abuzz with activity, as scientists and mathematicians from all over America and Europe work on the biggest secret of all--the gadget. None of them--not J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Manhattan Project; not the mathematicians and scientists; and least of all, Dewey--know how much the gadget is about to change their lives.