Rag a Bone and a Hank of Hair

This book has stayed with me in all its detail for 20 years and counting. SF for kids shouldn't be as strong as whiskey, as cold as wind sheering between glass skyscrapers, and as brutal as real life... should it? As usual, Fisk pulls no punches. Like all good children's authors, his central lesson here is that you can't trust the grownups. A RAG, A BONE, AND A HANK OF HAIR may be the scariest of all his books with its grim future setting and tragic conclusion. It is also one of the most memorable (tied, in my mind, with YOU REMEMBER ME!). Young Brin starts off as a highly dislikable character who looks down on the Reborn family from the 1940s, but by the end of the book, he's been won over by their humanity, a quality that was absent from the sterile hitech world he was born into. But that's not the outcome that the developers of the Rebirthing technique wanted... Every kid needs to hear the terrible truth about the perfidy of authorities and the unreliability of friends. Wrapped in an unputdownable story, the lesson sinks in and stays with the reader. Buy this book (or any of Nicholas Fisk's books) and give it to a child you know today.

I first read this when I was about 11 or 12, and the category in my mind was that it was "a scary book". I just picked it up the other day when I was home and my younger brother was reading it for school. I remembered that I'd enjoyed it when I was younger, and began to read it again. It didn't disappoint me. I'd forgotten some of the storyline, for instance, the beginning section that wasn't set in the Reborn's living area, but the rest of it had the vaguely unsettling feel that I had remembered. When the end came (for the second time) I wasn't that shocked at some of it, as I had remembered the one crucial point of the story (but I won't go any further, for those of you who haven't read it!) but I was surprised by the depth of the issues that could be shown by a children's book, having become used to the sometimes shallow and one dimensional books on the shelves today. This book truly deserves the title of a Modern Classic, both by the quality of the writing and the issues it deals with.

I haven't read this book in a number of years, due to the fact I cannot find a copy. However, since I read it years ago, the story and title have stayed with me--which is a clear sign of a good, thought provoking book. The story takes place in a future where nuclear war has occurred and the birthrate has dropped off, so that scientists are looking into cloning as a solution. Particularly, the cloning of people from the twentieth century. The test group has been created from some genetic material that was recovered from the WWII period. This is the "Rag, bone and hank of hair" that the story refers to. A boy of the future is sent in to interact with this test group of two children and a maid. These three have been conditioned to believe they are living in WWII England. They are provided with false memories and stories and have no idea that they are in a far-flung future. The boy interacting with them undergoes a profound change of character as he works with them, coming to understand something of the nature of humanity, and himself.What struck me most about this was the power of story and belief upon human experience, and how this ultimately shapes the startling ending of the story. The perceptions we have at the beginning are dramatically reworked by the last few pages. And the story provides some food for thought. With cloning becoming a real possibility in today's world, some of the questions raised here might not be so far off base. I found it to be an excellent SF read, with some wonderful accounts of what it would be like to be in England during WWII bombings. I'm hoping to get a copy one of these days so I can reread it. Hope you can find one too!Happy reading! ^_^--shanshad

This book is thrilling, exciting, and fast-paced. If you like any of the above then I recommend you to buy this book. At whatever price, it is a great book to any collection of Sci-Fi books in any household. It is about clones after a nuclear accident in Europe. A super-smart 12 year old is going to live with the "Reborns" to get them accustomed to the 2070 style of life. But a nice surprise is in store at the end.