Life As We Knew It

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May 29th

After I finished my last post, I took a little time to play with the kids and then it was time to pick up the next book on my reading list.  This one, a Truman Nominee from 2008-2009, Life As We Knew It has an interesting cover with a giant moon on it.  Wondering what it was going to be about, somehow I forgot one of our best ways to learn this information - read the back cover.  Oh well, I started reading without this information and only finally turned the book over after about 50 or so pages into the book.

The back cover reads as follows:

"When a meteor hits the moon and knocks it closer in orbit to the earth, nothing will ever be the same.  Worldwide tidal waves.  Earthquakes.  Volcanic eruptions.  And that's just the beginning."

What this tells me is that I have jumped head first into the Science Fiction genre of a world after a disaster.  My first thoughts, this book has to be a cross between the movies Deep Impact (1998) and Armageddon (1998).  The more I read though, I learned that while this is quite similar, this gives us a first hand account from the point of view of a 16 year old girl named Miranda, as she writes about her family, friends, and neighbors and their experiences through the events after the night the moon gets hit by a meteor in her journal.


Something that I have noticed that plays out is Mom's views on the world around her and how they are changing as the story progresses.  Can you name some of those views and changes?

May 30th

Last night I must have read more than half the book between going to yoga and sleep.  The back of the book did mention something about not being able to put it down, its that or I just like to know the ending of any book that I start.  Anyway, after dropping my girls off at their respective schools, I took the morning off from going to the gym and continued reading Life As We Knew It.

Life has not gotten any easier for Miranda and her family as many people have left their small hometown for a "better" life.  I only say that because better in this book is an unknown.  It is something that we the readers and our protagonist, Miranda, can only imagine.

Can you imagine what life would be like without contact to anyone beyond Springfield?

Also, did you notice how I wrote these as journal entries?  That is because this the way the story is written, as if we are reading Miranda's journal of accounts from beginning to end.  While I was reading this, it made me start thinking of events in my life as journal entries, so I wondered if it would cause my students to think the same way.  I even thought it would be interesting to see if those who read this book would do what Miranda did and write in a journal each night about what happened to them throughout the day.  Hmmm...that would be some interesting reading.

Some notes on the author.

Susan Beth Pfeffer is the author of over 70 young adult fiction books.  Currently (as I am writing this) she is working on the rewrites to her next book, Shades of the Moon.  I am a little perplexed about this next book as Wikipedia said that it was scraped in February, but according to her blog post on May 29th (http://susanbethpfeffer.blogspot.com/), she was working on the final rewrites.  I guess I will have to do a little more research.  

If you like this book, here are the other books currently in the series:

• The Dead and the Gone (2008)
• This World We Live In (2010)
• Shades of the Moon (2012?)

I'm trying not to rush out and buy the other two books, but as I said earlier, I really like to know how things end up.  So I guess you will have to ask if I was able to help myself or not. :)