Big Bad Ironclad! is part of the series called Hazardous Tales by Nathan Hale. This book is about the race between the North and the South during the US Civil War to build bigger and better ironclad warships. The North tries to sabotage the ships of the South, failing and instead indirectly helping them get ideas about how to improve their ships. The South first builds the Viriginia, a giant Ironclad, so the North builds the Monitor, which is smaller but faster. Both Ironclads fight once but neither completely destroys the other. However, the Virginia destroys many of the North's other ships, and it was clear that the Monitor was still much weaker. Can the North improve the Monitor to be stronger and better than the Virginia, or will the South prevail and win the Civil War?
This book was interesting because of the creative way that Hale portrayed the war to make it easier to read. There was plenty of humor throughout the book, but at the same time, we learn a lot about certain events in the Civil War that helped the North defeat the South. However, at certain points, because of the attempt to add a lot of humor, I felt that some of the circumstances present were too historically unlikely.