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Ever since I read this book, I am terrified. If what happened in Fukushima hasn’t opened your eyes yet, this book will. It was published in 1988, not long after Tschernobyl happened, and according to my boyfriend, pupils were forced to read this in school in 6th grade (12-14 year old kids). Don’t get me wrong, it’s an important topic to cover in school, but I am not sure I would have had the stomach for this kind of thing with just 12 years.
There are so many things you just never think about, because you don’t want to think about them. Until you are in the middle of them. With this book’s main protagonist, Janna, you are right in the middle of it. She lives 70-80 km away from the nuclear power station in the book, there’s a special alarm going off, everyone is panicking, she is on her own with her little brother, her parents spent the day even closer to the station. Not knowing what happened with her parents, she has to make all the important decisions now. Do they stay in the cellar, or run for their lives? When she finally decides to set off on their bikes, you see lots of people not stopping, not asking, running for their own lives, driving past the children that need help.
I was never so painfully aware that the next nuclear power station is only 50km away from our house. Never so painfully aware that I had no idea what a nuclear fall out type of alarm sounded like, what safety measures our country would take/or wouldn’t take. Where I could go, and what we should do. What’s even worse, that station isn’t even in our own country; it’s behind the border, in a country that can apparently do what it wants.
I am terrified, but the book also led me to do research, and even if we can’t do much against the countries who still think nuclear power is a great idea, now if something bad were to happen I am a lot better prepared.
"Die sagen dauernd was von einer Wolke", berichtete Uli aufgeregt. "Und die Wolke, die ist giftig. Aber ich hab's nicht richtig mitgekriegt."
There are so many things you just never think about, because you don’t want to think about them. Until you are in the middle of them. With this book’s main protagonist, Janna, you are right in the middle of it. She lives 70-80 km away from the nuclear power station in the book, there’s a special alarm going off, everyone is panicking, she is on her own with her little brother, her parents spent the day even closer to the station. Not knowing what happened with her parents, she has to make all the important decisions now. Do they stay in the cellar, or run for their lives? When she finally decides to set off on their bikes, you see lots of people not stopping, not asking, running for their own lives, driving past the children that need help.
I was never so painfully aware that the next nuclear power station is only 50km away from our house. Never so painfully aware that I had no idea what a nuclear fall out type of alarm sounded like, what safety measures our country would take/or wouldn’t take. Where I could go, and what we should do. What’s even worse, that station isn’t even in our own country; it’s behind the border, in a country that can apparently do what it wants.
I am terrified, but the book also led me to do research, and even if we can’t do much against the countries who still think nuclear power is a great idea, now if something bad were to happen I am a lot better prepared.