Looking for fictional books about children with illness or terminal illness and about nuclear bombs or?

Question

End of world scenarios?

Answer 1

Try either When the Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs or z for Zacharia unsure of author they are both good and a book called Valley Forge

Answer 2

Child with terminal illness: try Through a Glass Darkly by Jostein Gaardner. It's about a little girl talking to an angel. I thought it was a bit sentimental and overly religious, but it's well written.

Nuclear war: Z For Zachariah by Robert C O'Brian is good, but it's more about coping in a world that's been emptied of other people - there is very little actual effect of the nuclear war. It's about a girl who lives in a valley that is a weather enclave, and escapes the nuclear bombs - so she has clean water and food and stuff, but no other people.

A much better nuclear war book is Brother in the Land, by Robert Swindells. It's told from a teenage boy's point of view, and is a very horrific and readable tale of the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust.

Answer 3

I have a few ideas for you, although if you want to go into the popular science fiction genre I'm not as up to speed as I am on modern/19th century classics.

Orwell and Huxley ('1984' and 'Brave New World') are obvious choices if you haven't already read them. Although not strictly 'end of world', the pressure on society/dystopian aspects might still be of interest. 1984 has a never-ending world war running in the background.

H.G. Well's 'The War of the Worlds' is another obvious choice, and Ray Bradbury's 'Farenheit 451' is a possibility if you're interested in post-apocalyptic societies.

For more in the post-apoclyptic vein, this list from an amazon.com search might help: http://www.amazon.com/Classic-post-apocalyptic-fiction/lm/18EPDDIQCQN8O

As for children with illnesses, there's Frances Hodgson Burnett's 'The Secret Garden', which features the bedridden little rich boy, and George Macdonald's 'At the Back of the North Wind', which is the fictional fantasy of a terminally ill child. You could also look at Tom Piccirilli's 'A Choir of Ill Children' (horror).

George Perec's 'W' might be worth a look, too. He's the author of 'e', the novel without the letter 'e' in it. 'W' is about an island population which organises it's people according to their sporting prowess; the sick and disabled being shut from society. It's quite political and relates the island to the holocaust of WW2.

Hope this might be of help to you!

Answer 4

Not sure if this is in the vein of what you're looking for, but it does deal with the Nuclear bomb/war scenario and such. I cant remember the author (I read it years ago for school.) but the name was hard to forget as it is a story that has stuck with me over the years, the title of which is 'Z for Zacharia'

Answer 5

A very good book about this scenario was one i read during my childhood in the 1960s. It was called "The offshore island" and was about England in the aftermath of a nuclear explosion. I am quite sure there will be still be copies available somewhere.

Answer 6

When I was a kid I read a book called "13 Is Too Young To Die". It's about a girl who is diagnosed with Lupus. It must have made an impact because 25 years later I still remember the name of the book. I read it over and over. Wonderful book. Now that you've reminded me of it, I'll have to go find it for my own 12-year-old daughter. Thanks!

Answer 7

When the wind blows, about a couple called Mr and Mrs Bloggs and how they get ill after a nuclear bomb goes off

http://www.amazon.co.uk/When-Wind-Blows-Raymond-Briggs/dp/0140094199/sr=8-2/qid=1169043693/ref=pd_ka_2/202-3024931-7420618?ie=UTF8&s=books

Answer 8

Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Answer 9

As far as children with illness goes, Laurlene McDaniel writes lots of books about teenage girls with cancer.

Answer 10

Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank

It is a great "nuclear bomb" story