The H-Bomb Girl by Stephen Baxter
Allen and Unwin, 2008.
(Age 11+) When Laura moves to Liverpool with her mother, strange things
happen. Her mother's boyfriend, Mort is part of the American forces in
Britain, watching the television news avidly, telling Laura that she
and her mother will be OK. But her father gives her a key, which she
must keep hidden, and commit a series of codes to memory, to use only
in the case of an emergency. Her new school friends are agog at the
similarities between Laura and their teacher, Miss Wells, and the girl
in the ticket box at the Cavern where the friends go to hear the new
groups in Liverpool could be her twin.
It is 1962. In the background we hear the news broadcasts about the
missiles getting closer to Cuba. Policemen talk at the school, telling
the students not to worry, windows are whitewashed, and people talk
about building shelters. But Laura has more day to day problems, as she
and Bernadette search Miss Wells's locker, finding a small rectangular
metal box which vibrates and sends messages. Eventually when the
group is confined to hiding in a cellar before the bomb is dropped;
Agatha reveals that she is Laura's daughter, come back from the future
to take the key to make the first bombing raids in the coming war. But
Miss Wells is also Laura, in a parallel time frame, needing the key to
stop the war that eventuates.
The first half of the novel seems confusing as more and more intrigue
is uncovered but details are given which make things ultimately clear.
The story seems to be one thing and then another, each step opening up
possibilities and directions, but as the story unfolds, it takes on the
unexpected shape of a time travel story, but one so utterly different
as to hold the reader's attention. Laura and her friends are utterly
believable, their language and ideas all part of the youth culture of
the early 1960's. It will be a shock to some of our students to read of
time before mobile phones, or instant money, or contraception. This
book is a stimulating look at a previous time, when events conspired to
put the world on the brink of extinction. The diary entries describing
what happened to Liverpool after an H-Bomb was dropped makes
fascinating reading, and the parallels to today's society can be
construed by the astute reader.
Time travel novels are few and far between and good time travel novels,
a rarity. It's great to see one which will engender much discussion in
the classroom, and could be used in a topic to do with war, or survival
or time travel. Some students may like to further research the
activities of the CND, or the author, H. G. Wells, as a result of
reading this book.
Fran Knight