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Life as we knew it
2006
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When a meteor pushes the moon closer to the earth, setting into motion a series of destructive weather events that wipe out coasts, rock the continents, and block out the sun, Miranda and her family must find a way to survive in a desperate and unfamiliar world. - (Baker & Taylor)

Through journal entries sixteen-year-old Miranda describes her family's struggle to survive after a meteor hits the moon, causing worldwide tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions. - (Baker & Taylor)

I guess I always felt even if the world came to an end, McDonald’s still would be open.

High school sophomore Miranda’s disbelief turns to fear in a split second when an asteroid knocks the moon closer to Earth, like "one marble hits another." The result is catastrophic. How can her family prepare for the future when worldwide tsunamis are wiping out the coasts, earthquakes are rocking the continents, and volcanic ash is blocking out the sun? As August turns dark and wintery in northeastern Pennsylvania, Miranda, her two brothers, and their mother retreat to the unexpected safe haven of their sunroom, where they subsist on stockpiled food and limited water in the warmth of a wood-burning stove.

Told in a year’s worth of journal entries, this heart-pounding story chronicles Miranda’s struggle to hold on to the most important resource of all—hope—in an increasingly desperate and unfamiliar world. An extraordinary series debut!

Susan Beth Pfeffer has written several companion novels to Life As We Knew It, including The Dead and the Gone, This World We Live In, and The Shade of the Moon.

- (Harcourt Publishing)

When a meteor hits the moon, Miranda must learn to survive the unimaginable . . . - (Harcourt Publishing)

New York Times bestseller! A heart-stopping post-apocalyptic thriller that's "absorbing from first to last page."*

When a meteor knocks the moon closer to earth, Miranda, a high school sophomore, takes shelter with her family.

Told in a year’s worth of journal entries, Life as We Knew It chronicles the human struggle to hold on to the most important resource of all—hope—in an increasingly desperate and unfamiliar world.

As August turns dark and wintery in northeastern Pennsylvania, Miranda, her two brothers, and their mother retreat to the unexpected safe haven of their sunroom, where they subsist on stockpiled food and limited water in the warmth of a wood-burning stove.

I guess I always felt even if the world came to an end, McDonald’s still would be open. Like one marble hitting another, when the moon slams closer to earth, the result is catastrophic. Worldwide tsunamis wipe out the coasts, earthquakes rock the continents, and volcanic ash blocks out the sun.

Life as We Know It is an extraordinary series debut. The companion novels are: The Dead and the Gone, This World We Live In, and The Shade of the Moon.

(*Publishers Weekly, starred review)

- (HARPERCOLL)

When a meteor hits the moon, Miranda must learn to survive the unimaginable . . .

- (Houghton)

I guess I always felt even if the world came to an end, McDonald’s still would be open.

High school sophomore Miranda’s disbelief turns to fear in a split second when an asteroid knocks the moon closer to Earth, like "one marble hits another." The result is catastrophic. How can her family prepare for the future when worldwide tsunamis are wiping out the coasts, earthquakes are rocking the continents, and volcanic ash is blocking out the sun? As August turns dark and wintery in northeastern Pennsylvania, Miranda, her two brothers, and their mother retreat to the unexpected safe haven of their sunroom, where they subsist on stockpiled food and limited water in the warmth of a wood-burning stove.

Told in a year’s worth of journal entries, this heart-pounding story chronicles Miranda’s struggle to hold on to the most important resource of all—hope—in an increasingly desperate and unfamiliar world. An extraordinary series debut!

Susan Beth Pfeffer has written several companion novels to Life As We Knew It, including The Dead and the Gone, This World We Live In, and The Shade of the Moon.

- (Houghton)

I guess I always felt even if the world came to an end, McDonald's still would be open.

High school sophomore Miranda's disbelief turns to fear in a split second when an asteroid knocks the moon closer to Earth, like "one marble hits another." The result is catastrophic. How can her family prepare for the future when worldwide tsunamis are wiping out the coasts, earthquakes are rocking the continents, and volcanic ash is blocking out the sun? As August turns dark and wintery in northeastern Pennsylvania, Miranda, her two brothers, and their mother retreat to the unexpected safe haven of their sunroom, where they subsist on stockpiled food and limited water in the warmth of a wood-burning stove.

Told in a year's worth of journal entries, this heart-pounding story chronicles Miranda's struggle to hold on to the most important resource of all'hope'in an increasingly desperate and unfamiliar world. An extraordinary series debut!

Susan Beth Pfeffer has written several companion novels to Life As We Knew It, including The Dead and the Gone, This World We Live In, and The Shade of the Moon.

- (Houghton)

Author Biography

SUSAN BETH PFEFFER is the author of many books for teens, including the bestselling novel The Year Without Michael. Among her other books are the popular Portraits of Little Women series and the award-winning Kid Power. She lives in Middletown, New York.
- (Houghton)

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Trade Reviews

Booklist Reviews

/*Starred Review*/ A meteor is going to hit the moon, and 16-year-old Miranda, like the rest of her family and neighbors in rural Pennsylvania, intends to watch it from the comfort of a lawn chair in her yard. But the event is not the benign impact predicted. The moon is knocked closer to Earth, setting off a chain of horrific occurrences: tsunamis, earthquakes, and, later, volcanic eruptions that disrupt life across the planet. Written in the form of Miranda's diary, this disquieting and involving story depicts one family's struggle to survive in a world where food, warmth, and well-being disappear in the blink of an eye. As life goes from bad to worse, Miranda struggles to find a way to survive both mentally and physically, discovering strength in her family members and herself. This novel will inevitably be compared to Meg Rosoff's Printz Award Book, How I Live Now (2004). Pfeffer doesn't write with Rosoff's startling eloquence, and her setup is not as smooth (Why don't scientists predict the possibility of this outcome?). But Miranda and her family are much more familiar than Rosoff's characters, and readers will respond to the authenticity and immediacy of their plight. Each page is filled with events both wearying and terrifying and infused with honest emotions. Pfeffer brings cataclysmic tragedy very close. ((Reviewed September 1, 2006)) Copyright 2006 Booklist Reviews

Horn Book Guide Reviews

In this taut survival story, an asteroid hits the moon, knocking it closer toward Earth, which results in cataclysmic natural disasters. Sixteen-year-old Miranda's journal entries provide a riveting account of how lack of information and resources, and, subsequently, loss of hope for the future shrink her world. Against mounting dismal conditions, her family's drawing together to find meaning in their altered lives is all the more triumphant. Copyright 2007 Horn Book Guide Reviews.

Horn Book Magazine Reviews

"It was still our moon and it was still just a big dead rock in the sky, but it wasn't benign anymore," sixteen-year-old Miranda writes in her journal after an asteroid hits the moon and knocks it closer toward Earth. The immediate result of this event is global devastation in the form of tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes, and other cataclysmic natural disasters. But Pfeffer's taut survival story is effective not because it witnesses these catastrophes firsthand but because it doesn't. Miranda, her mother, and two brothers live in Pennsylvania, away from the coasts, where the initial number of casualties is rumored (all cable TV, Internet, and cell-phone service has been knocked out) to be almost unthinkable. Miranda's journal entries provide a riveting account of how lack of information, resources, and, subsequently, hope for the future shrink her world. "We're dying in increments," she tells her older brother as their stockpile of food and water diminishes and ash from distant erupting volcanoes blocks the sun, producing wintry temperatures in August. Against mounting dismal conditions, the family's drawing together to survive and find meaning in their altered lives is all the more triumphant and makes the eventual small signs that conditions will improve all the sweeter. Copyright 2006 Horn Book Magazine Reviews.

Kirkus Reviews

Sixteen-year-old Miranda begins a daily ten-month diary documenting the survival ordeal her rural Pennsylvania family endures when a large meteor's collision with the moon brings on destruction of the modern world and all its technological conveniences. The change in the moon's gravitational pull begins to cause natural havoc around the globe in the form of catastrophic tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes and other weather-related disasters. Miranda's American teen view gradually alters as personal security, physical strength and health become priorities. Pfeffer paints a gruesome and often depressing drama as conditions become increasingly difficult and dangerous with the dwindling of public and private services. Miranda's daily litany of cutting firewood, rationing canned meals, short tempers flaring in a one-room confinement is offset by lots of heart-to-heart talks about life and its true significance with her mother, older brother and religiously devout best friend. Death is a constant threat, and Pfeffer instills despair right to the end but is cognizant to provide a ray of hope with a promising conclusion. Plausible science fiction with a frighteningly realistic reminder of recent tragedies here and abroad. (Fiction. YA) Copyright Kirkus 2006 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.

Publishers Weekly Reviews

When an asteroid collides with the moon, causing natural disasters—tidal waves, volcanoes, earthquakes and climate changes—on Earth, life as 16-year-old Miranda knows it will never be the same. Suddenly, things she has taken for granted—electricity, news from the outside world and three square meals a day—are a thing of the past. Thanks to her mother's foresight and preparedness, Miranda and her two brothers are better off than many families in their Pennsylvania community. They have a pantry filled with canned goods and plenty of logs to fuel their wood-burning stove. Yet their situation becomes more critical as other unexpected disasters arise. The book may be lengthy, but most readers will find it absorbing from first page to last. This survival tale by the author of The Year Without Michael celebrates the fortitude and resourcefulness of human beings during critical times. The story unfolds through Miranda's journal entries, from May, when the asteroid strikes, to the following March. Though the entries paint a grim picture of a rapidly shrinking civilization ("I write stuff down in here and I don't read it. Things are bad enough without having to remind myself of just how bad things are," she explains), her words also evoke a strain of hope which proves to be her most essential survival tool. Miranda's changing priorities, undying love for her family and heightened appreciation of simple pleasures will likely provoke discussion and inspire gratitude for life as we know it now. Ages 12-up. (Oct.)

[Page 53]. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal Reviews

Gr 6-8 Pfeffer tones down the terror, but otherwise crafts a frighteningly plausible account of the local effects of a near-future worldwide catastrophe. The prospect of an asteroid hitting the Moon is just a mildly interesting news item to Pennsylvania teenager Miranda, for whom a date for the prom and the personality changes in her born-again friend, Megan, are more immediate concerns. Her priorities undergo a radical change, however, when that collision shifts the Moon into a closer orbit, causing violent earthquakes, massive tsunamis, millions of deaths, and an upsurge in volcanism. Thanks to frantic preparations by her quick-thinking mother, Miranda's family is in better shape than many as utilities and public services break down in stages, wild storms bring extremes of temperature, and outbreaks of disease turn the hospital into a dead zone. In Miranda's day-by-day journal entries, however, Pfeffer keeps nearly all of the death and explicit violence offstage, focusing instead on the stresses of spending months huddled in increasingly confined quarters, watching supplies dwindle, and wondering whether there will be any future to make the effort worthwhile. The author provides a glimmer of hope at the end, but readers will still be left stunned and thoughtful.John Peters, New York Public Library

[Page 166]. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

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