Looking for a children's book - I can't remember the title!

[Fiona1986]

I was wondering if anyone here might recognise this book.

I read it in high school, around 3rd of 4th year which would make it around 2000, or 2001. It seemed fairly recent - probably wasn't any older than the late 80s.

The story involved a virus which caused people to age very quickly and die. I remember the main character was a boy around 12 or 13. His biology teacher came into school to tell them about it - and he'd caught the virus so was already beginning to look old and frail. He died not long after.

I think the boy lived with his grandparents, and they died too. The boy then buried them in the garden. Practically everyone in the UK died because of the virus and as far as the boy knows he is the only person left. The virus has struck most of the world too.

He manages to survive on his own for a while - raiding shops for food etc. Eventually he craves human contact (he maybe heard a radio message from another survivor). He heads for the big city (maybe London) in search of other people. In the city he finds balloons with messages on them - from a survivor - who I think has killed himself out of loneliness before the boy finds him. I can't remember if he actually finds any other people by the end of the book.

The title might have been something like "The Lonely World" but I can't find it anywhere on the web with either that title or by using a description. It's driving me mad!

[Fiona1986]

*Facepalm*

Less than a minute later, I've just found the darn thing!

It was "The Empty World" by John Christopher.

[Wolfgang]

Is it the same author who wrote the "Tripod" trilogy which was made a TV series as well?

[Fiona1986]

Yes, that's the same guy. John Christopher was a pseudonym, his real name was Samuel Youd.

[Katharine]

I've got the Tripod Trilogy of books. I've also got the vides and DVD of the 1980s TV series. I absolutely loved the TV programme, and waited impatiently for the final series which was sadly never made. I only got around to reading the books a few years ago. The TV series was a bit different from the books, but I think the essence was there, and I really enjoyed both the TV version and the original books. Although I do wonder if they'd have changed the ending for the TV series.

The videos of the series were quite expensive and I didn't get the last one. So I was thrilled to get the whole series on DVD a year or so ago. For some reason - probably because no one else in the house liked it, I hadn't got around to watching all of it, and so have been watching the final few episodes over the last week or so. I think I've only got 2 left, and it will be the first time in about 30 years that I've seen them, so I only half remember it. I'm putting off watching them as I really want to savour those last 2 episodes - it will almost as good as watching them for the first time.

I'm not sure I'd want to read "The Empty World" though, sounds rather depressing, and very scary.

[Fiona1986]

On writing that description I was thinking "how depressing is this!?" but I honestly don't think it felt so depressing reading it at school!

Reading the full synopsis on Wikipedia - I had most of the details correct (goodness knows how I remembered so much from a book I read once, ten or more years ago! It seems even more depressing now, though.

15 year old Neil Miller is orphaned following a car accident and goes to live with his grandparents in Winchelsea, England. Neil suffers post traumatic stress from the car accident and stays detached from his peers despite their occasional attempts to involve him. News travels of a new disease, called the Calcutta Plague due to its origin, which accelerates the aging process in human beings. The plague is uniformly fatal, and although initially only affects those of already advanced years (claiming an old teacher at his school and both his grandparents,) it quickly progresses until it takes the life of a 2 year old girl that Neil finds and attempts to look after. During this time Neil notes that he has contracted the plague, but after a brief fever it leaves him unaffected. The death of the girl (and earlier her 4 year old brother) leaves Neil the sole survivor of Winchelsea, and after deciding that Winchelsea is becoming dangerous - due in part to packs of wild dogs - he leaves for London, taking first a manual Mini which he has difficulty driving, followed by an automatic Jaguar.
Arriving in London he meets his first fellow survivor - the mentally unbalanced Clive, who although friendly towards Neil, during the night vandalizes his car to the point of destroying it, steals his mother's ring that Neil had kept, and then abandons him in central London.
After finding the body of another survivor who has committed suicide barely hours before Neil found him, he is again despondent, but finds evidence of other survivors which brings him into contact with Billie and Lucy.
Billie is openly hostile towards Neil, and it is implied that she has suffered in some way either during the plague or directly after it, but Neil becomes friends with Lucy and starts a romantic relationship with her - much to Billie's disgust.
During this time Neil notes that the dogs have been supplanted by even more dangerous rats, and at least one big cat has escaped from a local zoo and although unseen is heard outside their flat. To this end Neil arms himself with a pistol and ammunition taken from a sporting goods shop.
Billie and Neil continue to argue over an unspecified period of time, with Lucy gradually taking Neils side in arguments, until eventually during a foraging expedition Billie attempts to kill Neil by stabbing him in the back with a kitchen knife. The attack is shown to be premeditated as when Neil tries to defend himself with the gun he finds that it has been unloaded.
Neil is injured, but overpowers Billie and returns to Lucy, where they lock Billie out and decide to move on to a previously discussed farmhouse. Billie arrives back at the house and pleads with both Lucy and Neil to let her back in, but they decide that they could never trust her again, and leave her outside. In the last paragraph of the book Neil abruptly changes his mind, feeling that he would never get over the guilt of leaving Billie to die, and with Lucy goes downstairs to open the door and let her back inside.

[MJE]

*Facepalm*

Less than a minute later, I've just found the darn thing!

It was "The Empty World" by John Christopher.

     Well - although I didn't recognize the actual plot, I was about to suggest (before I read your belated identification of the book) that you head over to http://www.fanasticfiction.co.uk/c/john-christopher/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and look amongst John Christopher's books generally, because it sounded like the kind of thing he'd have written.
     The odd thing is that, now that you have named the book in your second post, I realize I *have* read it; but it was many years ago and I'd clearly forgotten much of the detail.
     It wasn't one of my favourite Christopher novels, though. I read the Tripods Trilogy in the 1970s (but still haven't yet read the much more recent prequel which tells how the Tripods came to dominate Earth in the first place), and I also really liked "The Lotus Caves", which is set firstly on a moon colony and then later in caves on the moon that have their own ecosystem, where the paradisal conditions turn out to be considerably more sinister than they initially appear, and the two boys who explore the caves find out about this very nearly too late! Worth reading if you like that science-fiction-y sort of thing. The atmosphere is well-depicted, and particularly noticeable is the sense of sheer strangeness and alienness about the life-forms which inhabit the caves.
     "Wild Jack" is one of several books by Christopher that feature a city/country, repression/freedom dichotomy, and is really enjoyable if you like that kind of thing. It shows a couple of boys rebelling against the strict laws of society, being sent to a prison or re-education camp on a remote island as a result, then doing a daring escape and encountering country people who have a totally different society, and he finally decides to live with them.
     "The Guardians" is on similar city/country lines, but perhaps a bit more subtle and difficult to read. Although the repression vs. freedom theme is there, the details are totally different from "Wild Jack", and the country society itself has sinister aspects behind its idyllic front.
     "The Long Voyage" is a present-day (non-science-fiction) book about a grim voyage through Arctic waters that goes horribly, horribly wrong; and "The Caves of Night" is about deep underground explorations that, again, go horribly wrong. The claustrophobic feeling is overpowering, especially when the party's sources of light start to waver, and the hero finally has to make a horrible, life-or-death decision.
     These last two are not children's books, by the way.
     John Christopher is an author some may find worthwhile to explore.

Regards, Michael.

[Anita Bensoussane]

I've got the Tripod Trilogy of books. I've also got the vides and DVD of the 1980s TV series. I absolutely loved the TV programme, and waited impatiently for the final series which was sadly never made.

I'd forgotten all about The Tripods until you mentioned it, Katharine! I watched it with my sister back in the 1980s but I can remember very little about it now.

"The Guardians" is on similar city/country lines, but perhaps a bit more subtle and difficult to read. Although the repression vs. freedom theme is there, the details are totally different from "Wild Jack", and the country society itself has sinister aspects behind its idyllic front.

We read The Guardians as a class reader at school, when I was about twelve. I enjoyed it and thought I might try some more books by John Christopher, but I didn't come across any.

[Katharine]

I must confess that part of the reason I liked the TV adaptation of The Tripods was the fact that the lead character was played by the heart-stoppingly good looking John Shackley. That aside, I still think it was quite a thrilling story with plenty of scary moments in it, and considering the lack of computer generated images available at the time, pretty well done I thought.

As for re-visiting childhood books. I sometimes wonder whether to try and read Flood Warning again. I know we read it at school, and we then had to try and write our own version ourselves. A lot of the books we had to read I remember my reaction to them clearly - revulsion at various war poems, Rogue Male and Lord of the Flies boredom at MacBeth and Henry IV Part I absolutely loving The Importance of Being Ernest but I can't remember forming an opinion about Flood Warning. I'm guessing it couldn't have been upsetting as that kind of thing sticks with me. I'm guessing it probably came in the boring category, but I'm a bit nervous about giving it another go based on the fact that nearly all the books I had to read at high school I didn't enjoy.

[Wolfgang]

Well, I read the Tripod series in the 80ies, before the TV series was made. I watched parts of the series and was disappointed by them.
I just see there's a fourth book, published in 1988 about the arrivals of the Tripods... decisions, decisions.

[Katharine]

Wolfgang, that sounds very interesting. I've just checked out our local library, and it doesn't have a copy, but there is one available in the county. I've got quite a lot on my plate at the moment, but hopefully in a week or two I'll be able to order it and pick it up at my local libary. If I enjoy it I'll try and get a copy of my own.

[Farwa]

I'm looking for a children's book too.
I think that it was called "Treasure Seekers" but it was not by Enid Blyton.
It's about these children whose mother has died, and their too busy to see their needs. They wish to find treasure, and strike it lucky.
They try writing a newspaper, and one of them enjoys writing poetry. I think there is a character named Oscar in it. It is a book written in the first person, but all of the kids narrate it, and you have to guess who's narrating it. Please tell me the title of this book, as I'm dying to read it!

[Tony Summerfield]

You already know the title - The Treasure Seekers by Edith Nesbit!

[Daisy]

That sounds like "The Story of the Treasure Seekers" by E. Nesbit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_ ... re_Seekers" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Have a look at the link.
I see Tony has given you the title while I was looking for the link for you.

[Farwa]

Thank you VERY much, Tony and Daisy! I checked out the link, and it is the book I wanted. I'd been looking for this book for a long time!