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This book was about a girl who lived in a post nuclear society where they worshipped nukes. She was considered ugly, gangly, and tall - and had telepathic abilities. She is accused of witchcraft and she and a young boy have to escape through a wasteland filled with mutants. There are people from a more advanced society who are telepathically in contact with her and trying to rescue her and the boy.

I read it circa 1980.

2 Answers 2

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This reminds me of Children of Morrow (1973), by Helen Mary Hoover.

It's set after an environmental disaster has wiped out most of humanity; the majority of the story follows a couple of children in one of the surviving towns who are in telepathic contact with another group of survivors. They end up having to escape into the wilderness to try and get rescued.

It's been quite some time since I read it, but a quick look at the article above says that the children's community worships one of the surviving nuclear missiles.

Another review here.

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  • This looks like a better match than The Chrysalids. I added a link to another review of it.
    – Fruitbat
    Dec 28, 2015 at 15:05
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That sounds a bit like The Chrysalids (1955) (aka Re-Birth) by John Wyndham.

Blurb from Penguin:

David Strorm's father doesn't approve of Angus Morton's unusually large horses, calling them blasphemies against nature. Little does he realise that his own son, and his son's cousin Rosalind and their friends, have their own secret abberation which would label them as mutants. But as David and Rosalind grow older it becomes more difficult to conceal their differences from the village elders. Soon they face a choice: wait for eventual discovery, or flee to the terrifying and mutable Badlands. . .

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  • If it is Chrysalids then there are actually a number of telepathic children in the area, who meet and then try to escape together (after being found out as telepaths). The local society is more like Christian fundamentalist farmers - not worshipping nukes. Any mutations are abhorred, children with visible mutations are either killed or expulsed to nearby radioactive jungle (The Fringe). A small girl in the group has such strong telepathic ability her thoughts are picked up by modern technocratic society in Australia who send a flying rescue vehicle for all of the group.
    – Gnudiff
    Feb 14, 2019 at 20:56
  • In fact the plots of the two stories seem so similar it could be suspected that the 1973 story is just a copycat. Wyndham had an number of stories which were later used by other authors. I think the day of triffids was one which I happened to read once by Wyndham and later on a very similar story by another author.
    – Gnudiff
    Feb 14, 2019 at 21:01

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