Fall-out

A powerful and disturbing book about a teenage girl on a journey to escape from the deadly contamination from a Chernobyltype nuclear power disaster in Germany. 14-year-old Janna is looking after her little brother Uli while their parents are away when the disaster strikes and she has to take some desperate decisions as the population flees for their lives, often displaying the very worst in human nature. Uli is killed and Janna does not escape from the radiation sickness. The middle section of the book concerns her stay in a school hall pressed into service as a grossly under-resourced 'hospital'. Children die around her but Janna survives and the last third of the story deals with her increasing politicisation as the Hibakusha (the name the survivors take for themselves after the Hiroshima survivors) demand better treatment from the authorities. This is an angry and committed book which will give Years 8s and above much to think about.