Brother in the Land by Robert Swindells

[jode*]

We were MADE to read this during Year 9 SATS English.

Year 9!

It started up the whole debate about nuclear war, and more horrifyingly what happens after a nuclear bomb has exploded.

This book has majorly traumatised me ever since and I cannot believe that nuclear war was in the Year 9 curriculum.


One part in the book - because of all the radiation, a baby is born without a mouth. Ew!!!!

We also had to watch "When the wind blows" the Raymond Briggs cartoon which is the horriblist* thing ever and so traumatising for a 13 year old.


Anyone else read Brother in the Land?



*yes that's a word

[Cherubic]

We were made to listen to the radio adaptation in the last year of junior school. I've happilly repressed it.

[rondette]

yes. I think. My memory has blotted it out, I think. The purple people eaters were involved somewhere weren't they?

It is a really awful book, in terms of depressingness. (is that a word??) As is When the Wind Blows. I remember getting that book out at the library as a nipper, because I liked Fungus the Bogeyman. I was in for a bit of a shock!

[rondette]

Cherubic said:

We were made to listen to the radio adaptation in the last year of junior school. I've happilly repressed it.

Heh. I didn't read that before I posted my message. I guess it's that kind of book.

[Steven]

A girl from my drama group did a speech from the stage adaptation for one of her exams:

"See this, Danny Lodge? It's a swede. But not just any swede - it's a Hiroshima (sp?) swede."

And then she started going on about Hiroshima babies and getting a bit weepy. It wasn't exactly a laff-a-minute.

[rondette]

I seem to remember spending most of my childhood living in terror of having the shit nuked out of me. Or getting Aids. From a sweet I took from a stranger.
The 80's weren't all 'that'.