The One Safe Place (31 page)

Authors: Tania Unsworth

BOOK: The One Safe Place

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“Sounds made-up,” Missie announced.

“Yeah, kind of hard to believe, Strange Boy,” Malloy added.

Devin shook his head. “No. What happened to us here is what’s hard to believe. Life in the city is what’s hard to believe. My granddad was right. At the farm all you have to worry about are ordinary things.”

He glanced at Kit. “There isn’t anywhere else like it. It’s . . . it’s a true rary.”

She hesitated, her face full of doubt and hope.

“You won’t have to gather stuff anymore because everything you need is right there,” Devin told her, his voice soft. “It’s the one safe place, Kit.”

She looked at him with troubled eyes, and for a second he thought she would walk away. Then her shoulders relaxed.

“Sounds like something I should try, then.” She turned to the others. “Who’s in?”

“Me!” Malloy said, “Fulsome likes the whole idea.”

Luke nodded, considering. “It’s a plan . . .”

Everyone was suddenly talking at once.

“Will we plant seeds?” Caspar inquired. “Will we chop wood? I suspect I’ll be excellent at chopping wood.”

“I hope we find the chickens,” Karen murmured. “I think I’d like chickens.”

Devin listened to them talk, his mind ranging ahead. It would be a very long walk, and they’d have to keep out of sight, avoiding roads. We came from the west, he thought, then we turned southwest . . . Through the window of the car he’d seen hills that thudded yellow- soft, one after the other in a long line. Devin lifted his hand and tapped out their rhythm against the mare’s warm neck until he was sure of the tune. That was the way they should go.

Acknowledgments

With special thanks too my friends Bonnie Tenneriello and Andrew Sofer for their incredibly clever advice, my niece Isobel Jones and her support and enthusiasm, and my husband, David, for his unfaltering love. Thanks also to Elise Howard, whose editing made all the difference, and Rebecca Carter, the best agent in the world.

The One Safe Place

Tania Unsworth

Questions for Discussion

ALGONQUIN YOUNG READERS

Questions for Discussion

1. The book opens in a hot, dry world of the future where it hardly ever rains, and technological advancements have done nothing to solve “the problem of the heat, or the greed and hunger that followed” (
page 4
). Devin can’t believe it when Kit tells him the rich people own the water . . . that some people go thirsty while the rich water their pretty green lawns in the Meadows (
page 29
). The vast divide between the poor and the powerful, seemingly lawless rich is a major theme of this novel. In what other ways—and with which other characters—does the author explore this theme?

2. Devin gives his grandmother’s locket to a starving boy in the makeshift children’s shelter (
page 42
). This act of kindness makes him a target for Roman’s recruitment to the Home for Childhood. On
page 48
, Roman says, “Some kids are born kind, but it’s rare.” Do you believe that people are born kind or, like Roman, that most people must be taught kindness? Would you describe yourself as kind? If so, did someone teach you kindness? What role does kindness play in this novel? Is anyone kind other than Devin?

3. If, like Devin and Kit, you found yourself hungry and scared in the dangerous city, do you think you would have trusted Roman and his stories about the Home for Childhood enough to go there with him? Why or why not? Did you believe Devin was making the right choice to go to the Home?

4. A feeling of horror slowly builds in this novel. What are Devin’s first clues that all is not right at the Home for Childhood? Did you try to guess what was going at the home? Were you surprised when you found out what the home’s real business was?

5.How is Kit’s response to the home different from Devin’s? Why does she so fiercely want to believe everything is okay? How does Devin’s relationship with Kit evolve over time? How do you imagine their future together?

6. Synesthesia is a neurological phenomenon in which the triggering of one sense leads to an automatic response from another sense. For example, some people with synesthesia “see” different numbers as specific colors. The Administrator tells Devin that he has a level of synesthesia that “occurs in only one out of ten million individuals” (
page 87
). Have you ever discovered that there’s something that you can do that others can’t? If so, how did the initial discovery make you feel?

7. The Administrator is rejected by her own father after all her desperate efforts to make things perfect for his long-awaited visit (
page 152
). Did you feel sorry for her when her father drove away as she tried to greet him at the home? Why or why not?

8. The “Re-Play Treatment” (
page 193
) is an extreme example of how far people might go to recapture the health and energy of their youth. What sorts of things do the elderly people choose to do when they take over the children’s bodies at the Home for Childhood? If you had a chance to take over an adult’s body for a day, what would you do? When you think about growing up and getting older, what do you look forward to? What parts of childhood do you think you might miss as an adult?

9. When Devin is inside Gabriel Penn’s old body, he is disgusted by the “slack and pitted skin” (
page 187
). “He longed to grab at his own flesh and tear it away as if it were some repulsive animal that had latched on to him and wouldn’t let go” (
page 243
).
The One Safe Place
offers a rather grim look at adulthood—especially the extreme old age to which some people are living in this near-future world. Are there any admirable adult characters in the novel? Today’s children are likely to live to be one hundred or even older. What might be the benefits or difficulties of life for a one-hundred-year-old person in the year 2100?

10. Author Tania Unsworth was in a dentist’s chair when she came up with the idea for
The One Safe Place.
Dreading the dental work ahead, she fantasized about having someone take her place in the chair with “some kind of mind-swapping procedure.” If you could swap minds for a day with anyone, alive or dead, who would it be? What would you do for that day?

Visit
www.algonquinyoungreaders.com/book/the-one-safe-place/
to read Tania’s personal essay, Q&A, and more.

Reader’s Guide by Karin Snelson

D. E. THALER

TANIA UNSWORTH, the daughter of the late Barry Unsworth, spent her childhood in Cambridge, UK. She currently lives in Boston, Massachusetts, with her husband and two sons. This is her first book for young readers.

Published by

Algonquin Young Readers

an imprint of Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill

Post Office Box 2225

Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225

a division of

Workman Publishing

225 Varick Street

New York, New York 10014

eISBN 978-1-61620-404-4