Harcourt Children's Books
Orlando, FL, 2006
Miranda's dad is having a baby with his young new wife, her best friend is spending more and more time at church, and she's fighting with her mom because she won't pay for skating lessons but she'll pay for Miranda's little brother's baseball camp. As if that isn't enough to deal with, "some asteroid is going to hit the moon," (p. 9) around 9:30pm Wednesday night.
Written in journal style, this first book in The Survivors Trilogy gave me A LOT to think about. The dystopian tale puts a spin on the asteroid threat - rather than hitting earth, the giant rock knocks the moon out of orbit. Who knew that could cause such worldwide destruction? The middle-end of the book moves a bit slowly, but the slower pace matched Mirand's experience and it gives the reader a taste of the tense monotony she and her family must endure.
Bottom Line: Life As We Knew It had me adding canned food, bottle water and batteries to my grocery list, which is exactly what a world-wide catastrophe tale should do.
