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Original poster

Please help me remember this YA book from the 90s

113 replies

ZimZamZoom · 19/05/2022 10:27

I have been trying to remember/find this book on and off for about ten years.

When I was at middle school (mid 90s) I read a book about a community of people who lived in secret tunnels in and around the London Underground. I think it began with a teenager running away from home and ending up joining this secret underground community. I cannot remember anything else about the plot though.

I suppose there is a chance it was written/published earlier than the 90s.

I would dearly love to rediscover this book.

Thanks in advance for any ideas.

OP posts:
Original poster
ZimZamZoom · 19/05/2022 11:59

Gunpowder · 19/05/2022 11:29

I don’t know the answer but it sounds very good, OP. I have fond half memories of lots of YA books I read in the 90s.

This one, out of the hundreds of books I read at that time of my life, is the one that still keeps bobbing up from the depths of my memories. It makes me think that I must need to re-read it for some reason or another!

OP posts:
StellaOlivetti · 19/05/2022 11:42

It sounds like The underground conspiracy by Catherine Storr. Genuinely scary!

Neilsfavouritechilli · 19/05/2022 11:41

Following with interest as I read this book too but can't remember it's name.

AnnaBegins · 19/05/2022 11:35

Viaduct child (apparently now called electric dragon) is the book I was thinking of, if that's it?

Lolliepoppie · 19/05/2022 11:31

Could it have been Fireweed by Jill Paton Walsh?

AnnaBegins · 19/05/2022 11:29

Oh I have this book, she's called Eva or something, lives with her auntie, she's unregistered because she had a weird ECG scan, turns out she's magnetic? The kids she befriends live in disused London underground stations I think. If that's the one I'll hunt the book out.

Hobbes8 · 19/05/2022 11:29

Junk was a gritty story about a teenage runaway. Not sure about the underground element though?

Gunpowder · 19/05/2022 11:29

I don’t know the answer but it sounds very good, OP. I have fond half memories of lots of YA books I read in the 90s.

Original poster
ZimZamZoom · 19/05/2022 11:26

bookworm14 · 19/05/2022 11:09

Is it this one? www.amazon.co.uk/Underground-Conspiracy-Plus-Storr-Catherine/dp/0140340114

No, not this one either :( Thanks though.

OP posts:
Original poster
ZimZamZoom · 19/05/2022 10:49

theproudgeek · 19/05/2022 10:31

Possibly The Borribles by Michael de Larrabeiti. Runaway children in London, who names themselves after London train stations, and become effectively immortal unless their ears are clipped become normal children again. One of the main characters was called Battersea.
I would have read it the same time, so mid 90s

Thanks but it wasn't this one, sorry. It was less fantastical than this. More gritty, real people.

OP posts:
CupidStunt22 · 19/05/2022 10:32

I remember this too but I don't know what it was called

theproudgeek · 19/05/2022 10:31

Possibly The Borribles by Michael de Larrabeiti. Runaway children in London, who names themselves after London train stations, and become effectively immortal unless their ears are clipped become normal children again. One of the main characters was called Battersea.
I would have read it the same time, so mid 90s