Surviving Antarctica: Reality TV 2083 is a novel written by Andrea White

Andrea White

Andrea White is an American novelist and civic leader, and the wife of Bill White, the former Mayor of Houston, Texas and the unsuccessful candidate for governor of Texas in 2010.- Biography :...

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In 2006, the book won the Golden Spur Award given by the Texas State Reading Association for the best book by a Texas author, and was nominated for a Texas Bluebonnet Award for children's literature.

Plot

Surviving Antarctica takes place in the year 2083 in a television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

-crazed country of America. The Secretary of "Entertainment" is the Head of the Department of Entertainment. Public schools shut down and are replaced with "Edu-TV" which are lessons with Interactive Quizzes on a television screen. It is mandatory and only goes up to Eighth Grade. After completing the required Eighth Year of Edu-TV, one must pay for High School and College. In the year 2083, America is awfully poor and very bad in the economy. People live in shacks worse than Hoovervilles during the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

. So to pay for further education, a few sponsored scholarships are given out. The most popular is "The Toss" which is a game of pure chance. The administer calls out a number, and the 14 year-old wishing for the full scholarship rolls two dice, hoping it will land on that number.

In Edu-TV the Social Studies/History show is called "Historical Survivor". The Secretary of DOE (aka "Hot Sauce" by her employees) gathers a "lucky few" to re-enact parts of history. The five kids (Robert, Polly, Grace, Andrew, and Billy) see an advertisement by Hot Sauce(the nickname given to the Secretary of Entertainment due to her red hair and clothes) for a new Historical Survivor Series that features kids. It is called "Historical Survivor: Antarctica". She offers $10,000 to whoever is chosen to re-enact the expedition of Robert F. Scott and an extra $90,000 to the MVP (most valuable player). They had to fill out an application to be eligible. These five kids (out of about 4,000 applicants) made it, unlike most of the others. Unbeknownst to them, however, the Secretary has placed mini camcorders in the eyes to film instead of a camera crew. Hot Sauce also planned different calamities to happen to the kids on their journey that also happened to Scott. But a group of night shift employees engage in acts of sabotage to help the kids on their way.

All five come from completely different backgrounds and walks of life, but will have to cooperate to survive Antarctica. Through a series of tragedies and misfortunes, they end up in the middle of nowhere, frostbitten and hungry. But will they get help from the one person nobody would expect- the camera crews?

Title

Surviving Antarctica was originally published as No Child's Game: Reality TV 2083. Harper Collins called the author and told her that teens and pre-teens (the age group the novel was directed to) would be less likely to buy if the title had "child" in its title. It was then changed to Surviving Antarctica: Reality TV 2083. Scholastic bought is as the original title, then they ended up selling it, after another publisher bought as No Child's Game, as Surviving Antarctica: Reality TV 2083. Even if the titles are different, the story and words are the same.