The Chrysalids by John Wyndham

Can you see this person's Mutation?

          This book is about a boy called David who lives in a world that has experienced a nuclear holocaust. Much of the land is uninhabitable except the extreme northern regions. He lives in a country he calls Labrador (which we know as a region of northern Canada but he does not know that any other lands exist except the Badlands to the south). In the Badlands live people and animals which are mutations and his society think are evil. His Father and village leaders obsessed with keeping mankind and their livestock and crops in the "True Image of God". They have rules about animals and plants should look. If a horse is too big, even if it is useful it is not allowed. Mutations are destroyed, even Human ones, whilst his Father preaches about good and evil and the sinfullness of Mutants.
          But one of David's friends, Sophie, is a mutant. She has six toes but tries to hide them. When David finds out he begins to question how someone as nice as Sophie could really be evil. Anyway he has his own secret to hide, he has his own mutation - he is telepathic..........how long will he and some of the other children who share his mutation in his region be able to hide it, especially now that his little sister, Petra, has developed such strong telepathic communication that she is giving them all headaches at the same time. Someone is bound to notice. Should they run away to the Badlands? But what would the people there do to them? What do his dreams about cities far away and strange flying birds (planes but he has never seen one) mean, and distant voices calling to him mean? Is there any truth in the old fishermens' stories about safe lands far, far south of the Badlands?

I would recommend this book to all the readers who enjoy imagenery but real life situations that may occur and imagining what life might be like hundreds of years after a nuclear holocaust when all records of our time had been lost.
I would rate this book 9/10 because it is about young teenagers making life changing decisions.
The title I think refers to the stage of development when a caterpillar is changing into a butterfly, all the cells being mixed up to make something different. The children are going through this change, but they do not know what the result will be.                   J.F.