Books like Bomb by Steve Sheinkin

A dystopian novel about a future society where books are outlawed and 'firemen' burn any found, challenging the role of censorship and preservation of knowledge.

Jeannette Walls' memoir chronicles her turbulent childhood in a dysfunctional, itinerant family, detailing poverty, alcoholism, and homelessness across the United States as she seeks stability and personal growth.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks follows the story of Henrietta Lacks, a poor black tobacco farmer whose cancer cells were taken in 1951 without her consent and later became the first immortal human cell line, HeLa, driving major scientific breakthroughs while raising questions of ethics, race, and medical exploitation.

A compelling overview of American history through the eyes and experiences of its women, workers, African Americans, Native Americans, immigrants, and the working poor.

William E. Dodd, America's first ambassador to Nazi Germany, arrives in Berlin in 1933 to chronicle the early rise of Hitler—and the diplomatic tightrope his nation must navigate.

John Hersey’s *Hiroshima* documents the devastating aftermath of the July 1945 atomic blast through the eyes of six survivors, offering a detailed, human perspective on the tragedy.

A true‑story chronicle of the University of Washington’s 1936 eight‑oar crew, whose perseverance and teamwork led them to Olympic gold amid the Great Depression and the rise of Nazi Germany.

Newbery Honor Book National Book Award Finalist

During World War I, women painted clock dials with radium, a glowing but toxic substance, leading to illness and a landmark workers’ rights struggle in America.

During World II, a Navajo boy named Ned Begay, after learning that his language is deemed useless in a white‑run boarding school, joins the Marines as a Code Talker, using Navajo to transmit secret messages in combat.

Louis Zamperini’s extraordinary journey from Olympic gold‑medalist to a World War II bombardier, through a Pacific plane crash, 47 days adrift, and harrowing imprisonment by the Japanese, is a gripping tale of survival and resilience.

Rick Atkinson’s third volume traces the Allied campaign through Sicily and Italy, detailing battles at Salerno, Anzio and Monte Cassino and the drive to Rome during World War II.

Five Days at Memorial follows physician‑reporter Sheri Fink as she reconstructs the chaotic fifth day at Memorial Medical Center during Hurricane Katrina, exposing the extreme challenges of disaster medicine and the difficult decisions that arose in that environment.

A complete biographical look at the complex life of a world-famous entertainer. With determination and audacity, Josephine Baker turned her comic and musical abilities into becoming a worldwide icon of the Jazz Age.The many faces of Josephine Baker provides the first in-depth portrait of this remarkable woman for young adults.

A boy's journey from dreams of baseball to the heart of a World War II internment camp.

Digging deep into the archival record among formerly secret technical reports, Rose examines early thinking about the atomic bomb not only on the German side but also among Allied scientists. He finds that the early history of fission bomb physics had no shortage of false starts and fumbles in both camps. But, whereas the Allied physicists' ideas crystallized into a realistic prospect for a bomb toward the end of 1940. Heisenberg's basic misconceptions persisted, influencing the German leaders not to push for atomic weapons. In fact, Heisenberg never had to face the moral problem of whether he should design an actual bomb for the Nazi regime. Rose's exploration of the German mentality that made it quite reasonable for "unpolitical" scientists to support the regime in power, whatever its form, shows the extent to which Heisenberg and others could devote themselves to research they regarded as patriotic.