Synopses & Reviews
When Tom's grandfather goes off the road, Tom is sure Gandy has gone mad. Tom knows that beyond the wall lies the Outside, a wild place filled with barbarians and unimaginable dangers. He also knows that Oldies are weak-minded. So Tom summons all his courage and goes after Gandy, who obviously doesn't know what he's doing. Or does he? Tom's experience in the strange, messy, emotional world Outside, where so many things prohibited to Insiders are taken for granted, quickly shakes all his certainties. Who is crazy, the Oldies who are sent to the Memory Theme Park, or the families who let them go? Is the Wall meant to keep the Outsiders out, as Tom has always been told--or the Insiders in? Master storyteller Nina Bawden, known for stories in which secrets from the past emerge in the present, has created a spellbinding adventure set in a future society with secrets that make it a chilling mirror of our own.
Review
"For sci-fi buffs not yet ready to tackle Orwell's 1984, Bawden here introduces many of the same issues for middle graders." PW Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Nina Bawden is foremost among twentieth-century writers of fiction for children. A reviewer in Publishers Weekly wrote: "I'll come right out and say it. For my money, Miss Bawden can so no wrong. Her stories area a perfect blend of humor and suspense, and that's a blend difficult to achieve." Ms. Bawden was born in London, England, and lived there until she was evacuated with her school during the Blitz in World War II. She later attended Somerville College, Oxford. She and her husband, Austin Kark, live in London, except in the spring and summer, when they go to their home in Nauplion, Greece.