1. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Pfeffer, Susan Beth. 2006. LIFE AS WE KNEW IT. Orlando, Florida. Hardcourt Books. ISBN: 0152058265
2. SUMMARY
Miranda is a 15 year old just finishing her sophomore year in high school. Concerned more about boys, grades, her friends and her dad’s new wife and new family, she hardly notices others discussing the asteroid scheduled to collide with the moon.
The impact proves to be more of a big deal than predicted, knocking the moon out of its orbit. Things begin to change due to the shift. Tides, tsunamis, volcanoes and unpredictable weather patterns cause people to panic. When utilities and food become scarce, fast action on Miranda’s mother’s part keeps the family together, alive and fed for the time being. With limited resources, an early winter and an outbreak of the flu, family ties become strained during the catastrophic event.
3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Pfeffer tells this sci-fi story through Miranda’s diary entries about a future that could plausibly exist. She shares her and her family’s struggle of dealing with an unfamiliar way of existing in a world that is ever changing. Her priorities have changed from trivial (school, step mother, friends) to serious as she must come to grips with tides out of control, changing weather patterns, loss of basic utilities and the loss of lives. The contrast between her entries from the beginning to the end of the novel is drastic and becomes more intense as the novel progresses into the darker and more serious elements. Kirkus Review said that "death is a constant threat, and Pfeffer instills despair right to the end”.
The narrative is intense and compelling right up to the end as Miranda struggles with her new role of being independent and often in charge as her family deals with a flu epidemic. Miranda is left to be in charge of nursing the family through the illness and seeks help. This behavior is a far cry from her previous life before the asteroid, of school friendships and figure skating. As her world becomes smaller and more focused with the passing of time the reader also feels the angst and struggles as she does. Miranda’s family is slowly forced to cut back to starvation rations. They gradually cut back to only one meal a day, and finally down to only 5 meals a week. In the final chapters Miranda is down to just her family camped in the house, 4 people coexisting around 4 walls. Throughout the book the author makes sure Miranda maintains her teenage identity, staying true to herself and together with her family shows the stamina and commitment to love each other throughout this earth shattering ordeal.
The first novel in the Moon Saga Trilogy is a very dark view of a rural family facing what seems to be the worst catastrophic event in history, and takes the reader through the basics of survival techniques while dealing with the physical and emotional strains that come with it. Miranda comments, “I might as well enjoy today because tomorrow is going to be worse”. Occasionally the author introduces some glimmer of normalcy, a birthday celebration and Christmas to remind the reader that one must look for similar joys when devastation has destroyed the abundance you once knew. Christmas is especially poignant. Christmas Eve night, the neighbors, who have never really known each other, all get together to go caroling through what is left of the neighborhood. That night, Miranda writes, “The Christmas after Mom and Dad split up, they both went crazy buying us presents. Matt, Jonny, and I were showered with gifts at home and at Dad’s apartment; I thought that was great. I was all in favor for my love being paid for with presents. This year, all I got was a diary and a secondhand watch. Okay, I know this is corny, but this really is what Christmas is all about”.
Ilene Cooper said, in her review for Booklist, "each page is filled with events both wearying and terrifying and infused with honest emotions”. The gut wrenching ordeals that Miranda and her family face and their fate do not leave the reader with a fairy tale ending, but they do leave the reader with hope that better times may be ahead.
4. AWARDS/REVIEWS
YALSA Best Books for Young People 2007
Andre Norton Award- Shortlisted 2007
Booklist Editor's Choice Award for Books for Youth (Older Reader's Category) 2006
Nominee- Rebecca Caudill Young Readers' Book Award 2009 and the
Truman Readers Award 2008-2009.
Black Eye Susan book for the state of Maryland
SLJ review: 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
HORN BOOK review: 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.
5. CONNECTIONS
Ask readers to visit the National Geographic web site for information about natural disasters at: http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/earth/natural-disasters/ and learn more about the events that occur in the novels.
As an individual project or small group collaboration, have readers create a survival guide to natural disasters that would help someone like Miranda survive under circumstances similar to those in the novels. A good source of information on emergency preparedness is located at http://www.bt.cdc.gov/preparedness/.
Study guides for all three book in the trilogy. http://www.hmhbooks.com/lifeasweknewit/classroomresources.html
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