The Midwich Cuckoos
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The Midwich Cuckoos is a science fiction novel written by John Wyndham in 1957.
Midwich is a small sleepy English village where nothing ever happens until the Dayout.
All inhabitants of the village are unconscious for a day. This seems to have no side effects until all women of child-bearing age in the village are pregnant at the same time. There is a great deal of worry about what the Children will be like but at first all that is different about them is their eyes.
Later the Children's differences become more apparent and a special school is built for them. Violence breaks out between the Children and the other villagers as it becomes apparent they cannot live peacefully together.
The title is because the children are like young cuckoos, which have been laid in another bird's nest.
It was filmed as Village of the Damned in 1960, with (unusually for a science fiction film) a script that was fairly faithful to the book. There is also a colour remake in 1995 by John Carpenter, set in "Midwich, California", and starring Christopher Reeve in one of his last film roles before he was paralysed in a riding accident. There have also been several radio adaptations by the BBC, the most recent in 2003. Wyndham began work on a sequel novel, Midwich Main, which he abandoned after only a few chapters.