Children of Morrow

Morrow #1

by Helen Mary Hoover

After an unfortunate murder two telepathic children, members of a primitive civilization, are led to escape by a friendly, unseen voice.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Young Adult, Dystopia, Post Apocalyptic, Childrens, Middle Grade

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

http://www.orrt.org/hoover/

Over the course of her twenty-three-year career as a writer, H.M. Hoover won eight awards for her writing, including three Best Book for Young Adult designations from the American Library Association and two Parent's Choice Honor Awards. Another Heaven, Another Earth received the Ohioana Award in 1982.

H.M. Hoover lived in Burke, Virginia. Her last published work was The Whole Truth - And Other Myths: Retelling Ancient Tales, in 1996.

Hoover changed her pen name to H.M. Hoover before Children came out because there was already a children's author named Helen Hoover.

Reviews

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book many years ago, whilst still at school and I still love it.
Tia and Rabbit are considered odd by their primitive post-apocolyptic community. They share the same dreams of a far more civilised community and wish to escape their home, where Tia is considered a blasphemous witch. Several hundred miles away, Ashira and Varas reside, their telepathic powers recieving Tia and Rabbit's thoughts and wondering where they are. After Rabbit accidently kills the head cook, they have to run. Guided by Ashira and Varas, they must make their way to the sea and safety.

HM Hoover has created a wonderfully absorbing tale, full of danger and wonder. She paints the picture of a world completely changed by ecological disaster and presents it in a believable and engaging way. The characters seize your attention and keep hold. The adults are as well drawn as the children and rouse either your sympathy or hatred. I finally found a copy of this tale and would love it to be re-released for this generation of children.

[Mehdi · Rating 4 out of 5]

بچه‌های مورو این یکی از کتاب هایی بود که در کودکی مرا شگفت زده کرد. با آن با انتشار بخش‌هایی از ترجمه در مجلهٔ سورهٔ نوجوان در اوایل دههٔ هفتاد آشنا شدم. متاسفانه ترجمه و انتشار آن ادامه پیدا نکرد. کتاب پر از ایده‌ها و تصویرهایی بود مثل فرقه بمب اتم در آینده‌ای دور و تله پات‌های نخبه پنهان و دیگر کلیشه‌های شناخته‌شدهٔ علمی‌تخیلی که بعداً آنها را زیاد دیدم. اما این کتاب برای من در آن دوران کودکی دهه هفتادی شگفت‌انگیز بود.
مخصوصاً به این دلیل که وقتی داشتم این کتاب را می خواندم، زمان جنگ اول خلیج فارس بود که نیروهای متحد ناتو بر سر همسایه ما (عراق) آتش می‌باریدند و آسمان شهر من اهواز مملو از ابرهای تیره‌آی آلوده به دود سیاه ناشی از سوختن چاه‌های نفت بود. چاه‌ها می‌سوخت و باران سیاه و متراکم و چرب بود.
با آن و جریان بی پایان اطلاعات موشک‌ها و بمب‌ها از تلویزیون محلی، در آن زمان این کتاب برای من یک روایت واقعی از تاریخ آینده نزدیک به نظر می رسید.

من خیلی دوست دارم آن را به فارسی ترجمه کنم.

It was one of the books that amazed me as a child. The depiction of the cult of the A-bomb in that distant future, the elite telepaths in hiding, and other now well-known science fiction clichés that were later used extensively in other media made this book a wonder for me during my childhood.

Reading this book coincided with the time of the first Persian Gulf War, when the allies were raining fire on our neighbor, Iraq. The skies over my city in Iran were filled with dark, smoke-infested clouds from the burning oil wells, and the rain was black, dense, and greasy.

Amidst the constant flow of information about missiles and bombs from local TV, the book felt like a very real account of the near future to me at that time.

I would very much like to translate it into Persian.

[Mir · Rating 3 out of 5]

Centuries after humanity destroyed the environment, a small society of genetically modified telepaths has emerged from their underground shelter and begun readapting to life on the surface. Included in their efforts are searches for other possible survivors, but none of the explorers report any. Three decades later, the Elite, the leader of this community, establishes psychic contact with children in a remote and primitive village. No one in their community realizes Tia and Rabbit are telepathic, but they are physically different as well and thus become scapegoats. When the children accidentally kill a man who is harming Tia, they must flee into the wilderness and try to find their way to the more advanced community at Morrow.

While not on par with Hoover's later, similarly themed, This Time of Darkness, this is an impressive and imaginative first novel. I particularly liked her parallel development of differing societies, and especially that while she definitely presents the more high-tech colony at Morrow as preferable to the abusive, sexist, might-makes-right system that the children escape from, it is not overly idealized. She sketches in a background that includes an exploitative capitalist founder and telepathic leaders who had not always been above using their powers to bend other inhabitants to their wills. This would have been a better book if it had been a little longer, allowing for more exploration of these themes.

[Terre · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this when I was in sixth grade, and it was the book that made me a fan of sci-fi and fantasy. I remember thinking that my mother was wrong when she said sci-fi sucks. (Although I did find some Ray Bradbury tucked away on her bookshelf years later....)

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

H.M. Hoover was the first scifi writer I ever read. I started reading her books in middle school and absolutly loved them.

[Murray Ewing · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tia and Rabbit are different from the other children at “the Base”, a post-apocalyptic, hunting and farming community kept in check by a strict hierarchy, with the Major at the top, men who have fathered a child just below him, and women and children at the bottom. But Tia and Rabbit have dreams in which they talk to a man and woman from a far different community, one that’s more technologically advanced, and where everyone can do openly what Tia and Rabbit must keep secret in order to survive in their primitive world — communicate telepathically.

Children of Morrow is basically a rerun of John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids, with its telepathically-linked children living in a repressive community that would kill or banish them if it knew what they were. Here, there’s more of an emphasis on the adventure of the escape and chase than Wyndham’s (which lingered more on the children’s discovery of their abilities, and their trying to stay hidden).

Hoover’s good at letting us see, through the children’s at first uncomprehending eyes, the ruins of our civilisation — a collapsed and overgrown city, for instance, or their first glimpse (and smell) of the sea. She keeps the pace up and the pressure on just enough to provide a tense and satisfying conclusion.

[Ozsaur · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was a voracious reader when I was young, and pretty much read everything science fiction and fantasy from my small town library. While some of those books have faded from memory, bits and pieces of this book remained in my memory until it was brought to my attention again by Goodreads. Someone was looking for a book, and this one was suggested.

This book held up as an exciting read after all these years.

Tia and Rabbit live in a settlement where they are both outsiders, Tia because she knows things she shouldn't, and Rabbit because he looks different. The Base is a harsh place of endless hard work, and punishment for every infraction. After an altercation, Tia and Rabbit have to flee.

It's a quick read. The flow, and characterization are top notch. But it's the world building that grabbed me. The children move through a landscape centuries after being ravaged by a climate disaster. Through their eyes, I saw what the world looked like to them, and what it must have been before the disaster. While there was still life, the feeling of emptiness where so many animals used to be was well conveyed. A sad, but hopeful, world in recovery. And a satisfying adventure as well.

[Meliaka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Older but probably one of my all time favorites.

[Lori S. · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's funny this should show up on my recommend feed - this book has been bopping around my head for weeks now to the point I gave serious thought to joining a group just to ask for the title!

As I remember, it's a pretty decent story about two kids who have abilities none of the peers or other people in their village have. I read this somewhere in the middle of the 1980s ...

[Steph · Rating 4 out of 5]

Remember those few books you checked out over and over from the library when you were a kid? Well, this is one of them...even if it wasn't, at the time. Written in the 70's with a definite 70's take on the future, this is a quick and entertaining read and it retroactively became one the 10-year-old me loved.

Yes, it's pretty silly if you read it as an adult, but give it a chance. The plot is thus: The post apocalyptic world is made of small pockets of "civilization"... some more civilized than others. In one of the less civilized settlements, a special boy and girl accidentally make contact with the outside world they were told didn't exist.

It's that whole "Outcast kids find out they're special and show those mean adults...show them alllll!" books a la "Oliver," or "Harry Potter."

Quick, simple, fun.

[Douglas Larson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I discovered and read many of Helen Mary Hoover's books qutie a few years ago. Many of them are of the dystopian genre, years before it became popular like it is today.

I found some of Hoover's books more compelling than others. This, part of a series of 2 I believe, tells of a future generation of people occupying our planet many years after it was devastated by nuclear war. A single scientist using the company he built before the wars, devised genetically enhanced people, who could do things like read other's thoughts and similar extra powers. These super people sat out the war hidden in vast underground fortresses.

This story is about two children who inherited the telepathic abilities of the enhanced people because of a rogue scientist's unauthorized experiement with survivors of the wars years before.

[Anki · Rating 3 out of 5]

From a technology perspective this novel holds up remarkably well for something written in 1973 (Most likely due to the relatively minimal descriptions of technology), and the writing is still pretty solid.

The combination of utopia/dystopia and post-apocalyptic elements puts Children of Morrow solidly within an existing body of literature that's pretty popular and likely to remain so for quite some time. There are aspects of the writing that give a definite timestamp to the novel (for example, everybody seems to be wearing a jumpsuit in the advanced-tech society), but they aren't so glaring as to throw readers out of the story.

[SBC · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gripping, well-written, loved it. My only beef was that the basic plot was similar to The Chrysalids (children who are different growing up in an intolerant, fundamentalist society, develop psychic abilities and make contact with psychic adults from another land who come to rescue them). The Chrysalids was published in 1955 by British writer John Wyndham, and Hoover's book didn't come till the 1970s so was likely influenced by Wyndham's work.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the first post-apocalyptic novel I ever read. I didn't understand a lot of the subtleties of the book when I first read it; I re-read it several years later and was very surprised at how much depth it has.

[Ani · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book and read it over and over as a kid. I still remember where it was shelved in the library (before it was remodeled). Memories...

[Len · Rating 3 out of 5]

As I began this book in my mind was how similar it is to John Wyndham's The Chrysalids: telepathic youngsters in a post apocalyptic society escaping from the tyranny of their non-telepathic backward community and waiting for rescue by a technologically advanced group of further telepaths. Now I see a resemblances between it and Andre Norton's Star Man's Son: young telepath cast out by his elders to roam the irradiated, devastated land of what had been America in search of lost technology and artefacts. The main difference is the cause of the life destroying apocalypse. Here, instead of nuclear war, there was an ecological disaster that reduced oxygen levels in the atmosphere and eliminated 93% of all mammals, birds, and sea-life, essentially by suffocation.

It seems there may only be two pockets of human life left. The community of Morrow – it is not clear where it is other than being a three day sea voyage from San Francisco – and small group that has survived in the remains of a military base and rocket silo in California. The Morrowans are all telepaths, while there are three at the Base; these are the progeny of a rogue Morrowan scientist who discovered the community years earlier and used artificial insemination to fertilise one of the women with Morrowan sperm.

His action resulted in the birth of the Major, a telepath determined to stay in the closet. At the time of the story the Major has become the autocratic leader and misogynistic sadist-in-chief at the Base. Although he will not admit it publicly, two of children, Tia and Rabbit, have inherited his Morrowan talent. Both the children have made mental contact with Morrow and the Morrowans are determined to rescue them.

What follows is a well written and exciting chase story as the Major and his cronies search for the children through the Californian wilderness, and the ruins of a city that may be San Francisco, to the coast. While the Morrowans are on their way across the ocean to try and get to the children first.

Of course, this book was written for children while The Chrysalids was for adults and Star Man's Son for teenagers. So the complexity of character construction and philosophical argument in The Chrysalids is missing, as is the more robust and resilient protagonist in Andre Norton's novel. That is not to say that violence is absent. Life at the Base is unpleasant with the aggression aimed by the men and boys at the women and girls; Rabbit kills a man who strikes Tia with the power of his mental skills; and Tia pokes out the eye of one of the chasers when the children are almost captured. However, there is really little doubt there will be favourable ending.

Morrow is a strange society, certainly not the perfection the Morrowans seem to think they have created. Its founder, Simon Morrow, was the head of a large industrial and technological corporation who had the foresight to realise what was going to happen to the world – perhaps because his corporation was part of the problem. He created a huge underground bunker for himself, his family, and selected employees which would help them and their descendants survive. I can't help but feel that in the six generations since the disaster there must have been considerable inbreeding there, not to mention claustrophobia on an industrial scale. The resulting population would only inherit the earth due to a lack of rivals. That may explain why they seem to think of the Base people more as lab rats for study than as fellow humans they can help.

Perhaps all will come clear in the sequel Treasures of Morrow.

[Res]

The one where Tia and Rabbit are growing up in a post-apocalyptic world while the telepathic utopia calls them home.

This was a very formative read for me when I first started reading scifi in grade school. I was afraid it wouldn't hold up well, and it didn't. I dropped it after 25% mostly because it was so telly, with pages and pages devoted to how the apocalypse happened, how the Good Smart People survived it, how telepathy developed through mutation plus repeated mass death events, how the Good Smart People managed to create a kind of government that gestures at democracy but also elevates the smartest, most elite telepaths, etc.

Trying to use evolution-lite to worldbuild yourself a utopia lands you in eugenics very quickly. I don't remember how Rabbit's disabilities were handled, and am almost, but not quite, interested enough to skim the rest of the book just to find out whether the Good Smart People's superior healthcare will give him a perfect body and take away his stuttering once he gets there.

I had remembered that Tia's people were nasty, brutish, and short, but not that they were a literal death cult who hold religious services worshipping an ancient missile. I do remember their authoritarian culture feeling very farfetched when I first read the book in 1974.

With a 12-year-old girl as protagonist, I don't think a modern author would have been able to resist having a lot of sexual threat. Here there's a looming promise of unwanted marriage and the perils of childbirth, but the violence and exploitation we see (in the first quarter of the book, anyway) aren't sexualized at all -- it's a nice change.

The Good Smart People are thus far less developed as characters than Tia is, and less believable, maybe because of the Trek problem of the author believing that conflict and striving are artifacts of an unevolved world.

[Rob Hopwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Children of Morrow by Helen Mary Hoover

Helen Mary Hoover wrote two post-apocalyptic stories about an organization/settlement named Morrow.

Children of Morrow (1973)
Treasures of Morrow (1976)

At present, I have only read Children of Morrow, so I am assuming that the Treasures of Morrow (which I will read next) is a sequel which will continue the story. In general, the earlier work seems to receive better reviews that the later one.

Again, I am impressed by this author’s skills in several areas:
- A flowing and highly readable writing style
- Excellent world building and the creation of highly immersive environments
- Convincing and likable principal characters whom it is easy to care about
- A satisfyingly deep level of introspection on the part of the young protagonist
- A tight plot which moves along apace (the entire story is told in only around 150 pages)

It is relatively rare to find all of these points covered so expertly in a single young adult science fiction book. The first book I read by Hoover was This Time of Darkness, and I enjoyed it immensely. Children of Morrow is at least as good, and takes me back thirty years to my teens in the UK (the 1980s) when I was reading juvenile literature of similar quality.

Children of Morrow is related in at least one way to the two young adult science fiction books by the English-Canadian writer Monica Hughes I have just recently finished reading (Devil on my Back and The Dream Catcher), since telepathy plays a key role in the story. While the books by Hughes are satisfying, I have found Hoover’s works to be more mature and sophisticated, particularly in the use of language and the descriptions innermost feelings and technologies.

Below is list of more the difficult vocabulary in the book:

blazon
torula
talus
sessile
gamely
vomitus

As you can see, Hoover did not avoid using uncommon words, so apart from the imagination-broadening story content, teens reading her books also have the opportunity to expand their vocabulary.

In my opinion, Children of Morrow is a fantastic example of classic young adult science fiction from the 1980s, and it can be enjoyed by teens and adults alike. I hope that Treasures of Morrow is of a similar caliber


Following are some good quotations from the narrative of the story:

His appearance and speech made him the butt of the Family’s jokes, most of them cruel. Their laughter had made his stammer worse with each passing year.

She saw heads swivel as the women watched him pass and then quickly turned their attention again to the dais where the Major stood. But they were not fast enough. The Major glared at them in anger. “I see the attention of the women is wandering. Of course that is to be expected with women. They have always lacked discipline.” He paused for dramatic effect while the men laughed obediently at his sarcasm.

“Only the Ancient Fathers of the Base who worshipped the Great Missile were left alive! In His mercy He allowed our Ancient Fathers to take in and save women who would have surely died otherwise. Only by their discipline and obedience to their Major and to God were those people kept alive. And it is still only by discipline and obedience to me that you shall continue to live!

To Tia, the Missile was only another sacred relic, none of which she venerated. She had no more fear of it than she had of the rocks in the hills. But she was afraid of the Major and the Fathers. Because of that fear, she kept her beliefs to herself.

Tia knew her mother was ashamed of her but she still blushed there in the dark at the bottom of the stairs. It was bad enough that she was so tall and ugly. That could be forgiven; many strange-looking children were born. Fortunately most of them died in infancy. But when she was three or four, she couldn’t remember now, the knowing had started, and after that, the Dreams. These would not be forgiven by the Fathers.

And, unfortunately, in the old race of man, the individuals most likely to survive great catastrophe were seldom the most sensitive, or even the most intelligent. Merely the strongest in arms and stomach.

In the decade preceding the period known as The Death of the Seas, Morrow, with the foresight, knowledge, and idealism typical of his approach to both business and life, along with his profound love for and belief in mankind, conceived and caused to be created this structure, LIFESPAN, the ultimate in protective human environments.

There was great panic as mankind finally realized the end was near. There was widespread rioting, starvation, disease. Suicide and murder took enormous tolls. But available records covering the decade known as The Death of the Seas indicated over 93 per cent of all living creatures on the earth’s surface and under the seas died by simple suffocation.

Ashira still could not understand why, knowing they were destroying their own world, the old societies could not have stopped it.

“Loving is never unwise—so long as you see the object of your love as an individual and not as a distorted reflection of your own mind.

Since dinner was to be followed by a Council meeting, no wine was served. It had long ago been shown that alcohol produced an adverse effect on both logic and communication.

The thought would not bear holding and she broke off and stared at an ant hill near her feet, the ants busily going about their jobs of carrying sand grains. If she moved her foot she could squash them all, destroy their home. But she didn’t.

“Why haven’t the hunters seen these animals?” she suddenly asked Rabbit. “M-maybe they have?” “Then why don’t they ever catch them?” “M-maybe they’re too big—m-maybe they’re afraid of them?” “Maybe.” But Tia didn’t believe it. The Fathers had lied. For some reason they wanted the people to work very hard. Why?

“It’s strange,” Ashira entered into his mood, “the old civilizations dreamed of finding extraterrestrial creatures. Yet they paid so little heed to the life forms on their own planet.”

But Tia shut them out. So far as she was concerned, she and Rabbit were alone. She still believed the ship might come. But in her life and experience, good things that “might be” had seldom, if ever, happened.

[Susan Haines · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a pretty stupid reason for wanting to reread this book. I originally read it around 6th grade when my school librarian gave me a promo copy and told me to let her know what I thought. I read the book, told her it was great, and then completely flubbed the oral book report I was assigned for my class. I never should have chosen a sci-fi book for a book report--have you ever tried to explain a sci-fi plot to someone who isn't into sci-fi?!?! Anyway, I was remembering how badly I did on my oral report and it made me want to read the book again. It wasn't easy to find, but our local electronic library system found me a copy that had been checked out an average of once per decade since it was written.
I have to say, as a sci-fi book it holds up pretty well. The author had a strong feminist, pro-climate, anti-ignorance/religion message that is needed now more than ever. The two main characters are developed well, but not many of the others are. I'd be really curious how a child today would like the book.

[Vicky DeStephano · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Junior high, I found this book. It's one of two books I read that year. The second one is Treasures of Morrow. They're the best books I've ever read. I want a big reader. I have some auditory, and visual processing problems. These just went down so easy. I didn't think I would ever find them again. And...she wrote other books.

I've recently purchased it on kindle, and am reading it again. I recall Tia and Rabbit learning that they were telepathic, and that they weren't from the world they lived in. In Treasures of Morrow they find their people.

I'm going to be 59 in a week. I still remember these books. I hope I become as great of an author a Helen Mary Hoover.

[Tricia Toney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tia and Rabbit live in a post-apocalyptic village called Base. They are taller than most and have hidden telepathic powers. They make contact with telepaths from an advanced society who plan to get them out. Plans are escalated when Rabbit accidentally kills a man who was harming Tia. The children flee, pursued by some vengeful villagers. Will they make it to safety before they are caught? An interesting read.

[Jeff Russo · Rating 3 out of 5]

For whatever reason this novel for "young adults of all ages" kept getting recommended to me, so I ordered it, read on cross country flight.... decent little straightforward story, perfect to make a flight go by. In fact, apparently there's a sequel, maybe I'll pick that up for a return flight. Maybe I should read more young adult sci-fi

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first H M Hoover book I ever read and gave me such a deep love for sci fi. This is honestly such an incredible story of two young misfits trying to escape from horrible circumstances and yet they stay so fresh and beautiful.

[Diana May · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome book

Great read, very well done, there is a sequel, but I always wish the author had written more.....still they are both wonderful stories

[Marsha Valance · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mysterious power encourages two telepathic children to flee from their threatening primitive society.

[Karl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in the 70s and just stumbled across it again. It holds up well as a great YA tale and one gets a sense of the Cold War and environmental fears that were so prevalent at the time.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hoover produces some great ya lit.

[Lisa Rawlings · Rating 3 out of 5]

As good as I remember it being as a middle schooler. A little scarier now as an adult and knowing what the world is like.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Men are the 🎶wooooooooooorrrrrrrsssst🎶

[Collie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This holds up remarkably well for a post-apocalyptic story written in 1973. Indeed, the climate devastation and slow recovery of the earth seems painfully topical. Would recommend.