Plaguerism?

Rating: 10/10 (31 March 2005)

I'll give it a 10 because it was an excellent story when I read it when I was a kid. I can't remember the original science fiction author but the stories are almost identical and the only thing I can think is that this is a direct ripoff.
The story I read started the same way... people in a village who couldn't wander outside the borders. In the story I read, a boy and girl go playing one day and the girl gets her foot stuck between some rocks. She makes the boy vow not to tell anyone... takes off her shoe, and she has 6 toes. He promises and takes her home. She makes him vow never to tell anyone because anyone in the village that has a deformity is put to death as being an abomination against god.
To make a long story short, it ends up that outside the borders of the village is a modern civilization that was destroyed by nuclear war and the people who are put to death inside the village are killed so that radiation related birth defects won't spread to the 'protected' villagers.
The stories are so identical in tone and meaning.. the village, the people, the father, the boy and girl, the border, the modern civilization outside the village... there's no way that m. night didn't plaguerize this book or use it to get his ideas from.
It's a good movie, but it's a ripoff.