Steve Sheinkin Books In Order

Publication Order of Rabbi Harvey Books

Publication Order of Time Twisters Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Steve Sheinkin
Steve Sheinkin was born in Brooklyn, New York, and his family lived in Colorado and Mississippi before they moved back to New York and settled in the suburbs or New York City. When he was a kid, his favorite books were action stories and outdoor adventures: searches for buried treasure, sea stories, and sharks eating people, that sort of thing. Probably his all-time favorite was this book titled “Mutiny on the Bounty”, a novel based on the true story about a famous mutiny aboard this British ship late in the 1700s.

He attended Syracuse University and studied international relations and communications. The highlight from these years was this summer that he spent in Central America, where he worked on this documentary on the streets of Nicaragua.

After finishing college he moved to Washington, DC, and worked for this environmental group called the National Audobon Society. Then, once Ari (Steve’s brother) graduated from college a few years later, they decided to move to Austin, Texas, and make films together. They lived like paupers in this house with a hole in the floor where bugs crawled in. They wrote some screenplays, and made their own feature film in 1995, a comedy called “A More Perfect Union”, about these four young guys that decide to secede from the Union and declare that their rented house is an independent nation. They were sure that it was going to be such a huge hit, but they actually wound up going deep in debt over it.

After that he moved to Brooklyn and decided he should find a way to make a living as a writer. He wrote screenplays, short stories, and worked on this comic called “The Adventures of Rabbi Harvey”. In 2006, his first Rabbi Harvey graphic novel was published finally after hundreds of rejections.

At the same time, he began working for this educational publishing company, only for the money. They would hire people to write history textbooks, and they would send their writing in, and it was Steve’s job to check the facts and make small edits here and there to clarify the text.

Every once in a while he was given an opportunity to write small pieces of textbooks, like single page biographies or skills lessons. “Understanding Bar Graphs” was one of his early works. The editors noticed that Steve’s writing was pretty good. They began giving him less editing work to do, and more writing. Gradually, he started writing chapters for textbooks, and this turned into his full-time job. All the while, he continued working on his own writing projects.

In the year 2008, he wrote his final textbook. Steve walked away and he shall never return. His first non-textbook history book was full of all the stories about the American Revolution that he was never allowed to put into the textbooks. However looking back, he actually feels pretty lucky to have spent all that time writing textbooks. It forced him to write every single day, which is great practice. And he collected hundreds of stories that he cannot wait to tell.

“The Notorious Benedict Arnold” won the Boston Globe -Horn Book Award for Nonfiction and the YALSA-ALA Award for Excellence in Young Adult Nonfiction. “Bomb” is a 2012 National Book Awards finalist for Young People’s Literature, a 2012 Washington Post Best Kids Book of the Year title and was a 2013 Newbery Honor book.

“Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon” is a non-fiction book that was released in 2012. December of 1938. A chemist in a German lab made a rather shocking discovery: When set next to radioactive material, a Uranium atom split in two. This simple discovery launched a scientific race which spanned 3 continents.

In the United States and Great Britain, Soviet spies worked their way into the scientific community: in Norway, this commando force slipped behind enemy lines to attack German heavy-water manufacturing; and deep in the desert, a brilliant group of scientists was hidden away at this remote site at Los Alamos. This is the story about the plotting, the deceit, genius, and the risk-taking which created the world’s most formidable weapon. Here is the story about the atomic bomb.

“The Port 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights” is a non-fiction book that was released in 2014. One astonishing civil rights story from Newbery Honor winner and National Book Award finalist Steve Sheinkin.

July 17, 1944. This massive explosion rocked the segregated Navy base at Port Chicago, California, which killed over 300 sailors that were at the docks, critically injuring off-duty men in their bunks, and shattered windows up to one mile away.

On August 9, 244 men refused to go back to work until their unfair and unsafe conditions at the docks were addressed. Once the dust settled, fifty got charged with mutiny, and faced decades in jail and even execution.

Here is a fascinating tale about the prejudice which faced black women and men in America’s armed forces during the Second World War, and a nuanced look at those that gave their lives in the service of a country where they lacked even the most basic of rights.

“Fallout: Spies, Superbombs, and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown” is a non-fiction book that was released in 2021. Taking readers on a journey into the Cold War and our mutual assured destruction.

While World War II comes to a close, the Soviet Union and the United States emerge as the two greatest world powers on extreme opposites of the political spectrum. The Soviets refused to get left behind, after the United States showed its hand with the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. With Communism sweeping the entire globe, the two nations start their neck-and-neck competition to build even more destructive bombs and conquer the Space Race. In their fight for dominance, spy planes continue to fly above, armed submarines swim down deep below, and some undercover agents meet during the dead of night.

The Cold War game continues to grow more precarious while weapons get pointed at one another, with fingers literally on the trigger. This decades-long showdown culminates in the Cuban Missile Crisis, the world’s close call with the third (and final) world war.