The Radioactive Boy Scout: The Frightening True Story of a Whiz Kid and His Homemade Nuclear Reactor | 
 enlarge | Author: Ken Silverstein
Publisher: Villard
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy New: $6.45
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Avg. Customer Rating:  26 reviews
Sales Rank: 116592
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 209
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.6
ISBN: 0812966600
Dewey Decimal Number: 621.483092
EAN: 9780812966602
ASIN: 0812966600
Publication Date: January 11, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Nice and new. VERY minimal shelf wear.
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Product Description
Growing up in suburban Detroit, David Hahn was fascinated by science. While he was working on his Atomic Energy badge for the Boy Scouts, David’s obsessive attention turned to nuclear energy. Throwing caution to the wind, he plunged into a new project: building a model nuclear reactor in his backyard garden shed.
Posing as a physics professor, David solicited information on reactor design from the U.S. government and from industry experts. Following blueprints he found in an outdated physics textbook, David cobbled together a crude device that threw off toxic levels of radiation. His wholly unsupervised project finally sparked an environmental emergency that put his town’s forty thousand suburbanites at risk. The EPA ended up burying his lab at a radioactive dumpsite in Utah. This offbeat account of ambition and, ultimately, hubris has the narrative energy of a first-rate thriller.
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Growing up in suburban Detroit, David Hahn was fascinated by science, and his basement experiments -- building homemade fireworks, brewing moonshine, and concocting his own self-tanning lotion -- were more ambitious than those of other boys. While working on his Atomic Energy badge for the Boy Scouts, David's obsessive attention turned to nuclear energy. Throwing caution to the wind, he plunged into a new project: building a nuclear breeder reactor in his backyard garden shed. In The Radioactive Boy Scout, veteran journalist Ken Silverstein recreates in brilliant detail the months of David's improbable nuclear quest. Posing as a physics professor, David solicited information on reactor design from the U.S. government and from industry experts. (Ironically, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was his number one source of information.) Scavenging antiques stores and junkyards for old-fashioned smoke detectors and gas lanterns -- both of which contain small amounts of radioactive material -- and following blueprints he found in an outdated physics textbook, David cobbled together a crude device that threw off toxic levels of radiation. His unsanctioned and wholly unsupervised project finally sparked an environmental catastrophe that put his town's forty thousand residents at risk and caused the EPA to shut down his lab and bury it at a radioactive dumpsite in Utah. An outrageous account of ambition and, ultimately, hubris that sits comfortably on the shelf next to such offbeat science books as Driving Mr. Albert and stories of grand capers like Catch Me If You Can, The Radioactive Boy Scout is a real-life adventure with the narrative energy of a first-rate thriller.
"Anyone who has ever wondered what the neighborhood geek might be brewing up in his backyard should read The Radioactive Boy Scout. This is a riveting and disturbing story about the power of the teenage mind -- and the sparks that fly when a nuclear family melts down."
DAVID KUSHNER, AUTHOR OF MASTERS OF DOOM
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| Customer Reviews: Read 21 more reviews...
 Excellent Book August 12, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is an excellent non-fiction quick read at just under 200 pages. It is a true story about a teenager, David Hahn, who ventured to build a nuclear breeder reactor with little protection from radioactivity. He used a potting shed as a laboratory and a few old college textbooks from his dad for knowledge on radioactive materials. David became increasingly secluded at school as he continued to experiment with dangerous chemistry. His grades dropped, and no one believed he could do anything to raise eyebrows. He ignored laws and cautions, obtaining many radioactive materials like beryllium, radium, polonium (210!), and americium to recreate the Curie couple's feats. He succeeded in creating a nuclear reactor but could not stop the increasing radioactivity, resulting in catastrophe. Finally, the federal government had to dismantle his reactor, as it was a great danger to people who lived near David.
I think this book is a worthy read. It is a fascinating story with great description. The author, Ken Silverstein, was very good at highlighting facts and things that happened in David's life that were related to his inspiration of building a nuclear reactor. However, I think Silverstein put a little too much history of atomic energy into the book. He is also slightly biased against nuclear power.
Overall, I think this book could have been written better, but still deserves a thumb up.
 From his former Scoutmaster August 4, 2007
11 out of 13 found this review helpful
I was David's scoutmaster when he was preparing for his Eagle Scout Board of Review. I was to contact five registered adult Scout leaders, who would comprise the Board. One prospective adult told me he could not sit on the Board, because "something happened".
I learned that David and some friends were stopped by the cavaliering Clinton Township (Michigan) Police, who were randomly stopping teens and searching their cars for stolen tires.
David was not allowed to keep his experiments in his stepmother's home, so he kept everything in his car trunk. The cops found no tires, but saw his stuff and overreacted.
Days later, David's father phoned and said that David would no longer pursue the Eagle Scout rank.
A month or so later, a man claiming to be a reporter phoned my home, wanting to do a telephone interview about David. After a few moments, I refused. There was something negative about the line of questioning.
As a Scout, David was always clean-cut, polite, and well-liked by the other boys. My take is that David had the scientific curiosity of a Tesla or Edison; not of an evil prankster.
David's father, like so many divorced and re-married men, walked a tightrope between caring for his son and appeasing a new bride.
As for Mr. Silverstein, he should keep his story factual, and keep his opinions about Scouting to the editorial pages.
 The Atom is Our Friend July 31, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
There's something not quite serious about The Radioactive Boy Scout. The book jacket has a cartoonish design and each page has a little atomic symbol by the page number. It's a small book, almost like a children's reader. It seemed to me as if it would be a quick, fun read.
Well, it was quick, all right. Author Ken Silverstein originally wrote this as an article for Harper's Magazine, according to the blurb. The article has been padded with several chapters on nuclear power, chemistry, and the history of the Boy Scouts. But The Radioactive Boy Scout is hardly a cartoon or a fun little story.
Although this is a story about how one teenager nearly built a nuclear reactor in his back yard, Silverstein wants us to know it is more than that. He emphasizes how David Hahn, the teenager, was neglected by his parents and not taken seriously by his teachers. If only someone had taken the time to take this boy under his wing, perhaps a near-disaster could have been averted. Certainly the fact that there was no disaster takes the edge off the story, but we already know what can happen when teenagers don't get the attention they need.
I enjoyed the main story as well as the chapters on science and the Boy Scouts. Silverstein describes how radium-based products were sold in the early 20th century as tonics, lotions, and even suppositories, to improve one's health. He recalls filmstrips (remember?) and pamphlets that cheerfully told us to "duck and cover" in the event of a nuclear explosion. He uses a hilarious passage from P.G. Wodehouse to illustrate a common view of the Boy Scouts in their early days.
Although I share most of Silverstein's opinions on federal government, the nuclear power industry, the Boy Scouts, and inattentive parents, I think the story would have been more effective if he had left his editorial comments out. Describing David's father as "pathologically oblivious" is unnecessary. True, but unnecessary.
A great quick red June 20, 2007
I found this book to be an enjoyable quick read. The science was well explained for those who don't know about nuclear physics and chemistry. There was a good progression of the story with interruptions that you wanted to read to get the background science information on what exactly David was doing. I think everyone should read this book to get a realistic view of how people can have an influence on one life. I will digress a great deal if I start to point out the many life lessons packed into this book so I'll just leave with a recommendation. Read not to get a balanced viewpoint for we all have our slants; read to get another viewpoint and figure out what you are going to do with that new perspective.
 Very Interesting Story with Distractions from the Author June 15, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
The *story* is very interesting, but the author repeatedly annoyed me. As others have said, if he had stuck to the story, the book would have been much, much shorter. There was some useful background information about nuclear history and research, but there was also absolutely useless information thrown in as well. [...].
The author was also rather condescending toward David (the boy), his parents, and virtually anyone else who knew him, it seemed. I felt bad for David in particular. The author clearly interviewed him and got to know him somewhat, then he took quotations and used them in ways that David didn't intend for them to sound. And the general tone toward David seemed rather uncharitable. I think he realized this and tried to remedy it a bit in the epilogue, but it doesn't undo the rest of the book. I think that a better author could have conveyed the obvious, that David needed better direction, without the condescending tone.
In the end, I'm definitely glad that I read the book, but I find the author distasteful. I would have preferred to have read the book from someone who left less of their own personality stamped on the story. I would definitely like to know what David is doing now. He should start a blog.
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