What's the Name of That Book??? discussion
This topic is about
The Awakening Water
SOLVED: Children's/YA
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SOLVED. YA Dystopian Future, children kept in a group home and drugged to keep them complacent. Spoilers ahead. [s]
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Michelle
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May 15, 2021 05:23PM
The boy and girl teen get kitchen duty peeling potatoes and realise the water they are give n is drugged so drink tap water and slowly become more “awake” then one night escape and travel across wasteland to find a new home only to find that friends that had dissapeared before were there as they had been placed in houses to start families after the adults had died. Read at school in the early 1980’s but i cant remember much more about it.
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Not This Time of Darkness or A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair, unless the OP's badly misremembered the plot.
I figured they were kinda off, but you never know, lol.Michelle, I notice your profile says you're in England. Do you think this was a British book?
Hank of Hair was published 1999 so def not, Time of darkness published 2003 and all three have the wrong plot. Thanks for trying though. It might have been written in the UK yes, in fact it's highly probable as schools in England tended to feature mostly English books back then.
The original pub dates for both are 1980. It appears in parentheses next to the pub date for that particular edition. They've both been reprinted many times over the years.I agree though - not your book! I'll do some more searching to see what I can find. Was there a romance between the boy and the girl? Were they older teenagers or younger ones?
They were younger teenagers I think but it wasn't clear. The author did a very good job of telling the story from the boy's point of view. They were in a large house living with other children, the older ones allways went missing when they got to maturity and they were all drugged with greyish water. The boy started peeling potatoes for a kitchen job when he got a bit older and one day tasted the water on the potatoes, he started becoming less fuzzy and more aware so he persuaded the girl to do the same. One day they slipped out at night through the kitchen door, crossed fields, hid in a dip in the ground by tearing up grass, putting their clothes over them while they lay down and putting the grass on top of it to disguise it in case they were seen, eventually they came upon a village and realise that all the missing kids from thehome were there and living as functioning adults, they weren't prisoners, they were just being brought up safely and stopped from asking too many awkward questions because they were all orphans as the adults had all died for some reason. Hope that helps. I remember it well as I read it about 5 times and loved some of the plot details like the lying down in a slight dip in the field with grass over them to hide. The author really made it live.
I'll keep looking to see what I can dig up! Some lists to check....
Children's Science Fiction of the 1970s
Children's Science Fiction of the 1980s
YA Science Fiction, Dystopian, and Post-Apocalyptic Published in the 1970s
YA Science Fiction, Dystopian, and Post-Apocalyptic Published in the 1980s
Thanks, nothing in there, it was worth a try though.
I know you said early '80s. Would the latest publication date be like 1984?
I left school in 1984 so no, it'd be earlier than that.
It sounds like The Awakening Water, which google tells me is by G R Kesteven.
That's it!!! Thank you guys!!
Crikey imagine 1977 being a future now huh?
What's the Name of That Book???
Books mentioned in this topic
The Awakening Water (other topics)Red Zone (other topics)
This Time of Darkness (other topics)
A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair (other topics)
