When the Moon is knocked out of orbit by an asteroid, it becomes a strange menace hanging low in the sky. And the world starts to end — or that’s what it feels like for teenage Miranda. Tidal waves, earthquakes, volcanoes, and epidemics ensue as she chronicles her family’s struggle to stay alive through the collapse of their (and our) way of life in great and sometimes heartbreaking detail. Always believable, always human, Miranda’s story is harrowing, but it brings with it a multitude of rewards for the reader. And — at least on the topics I knew enough to be able to judge (public health, societal collapse) — Susan Beth Pfeffer gets it pretty much right.

I don’t have time at the moment to give Life As We Knew It the fuller take it deserves, but please, do read it. Especially if you’re secretly (or openly) obsessed with post-apocalyptic scenarios, societal collapse, deadly epidemics, etc. etc. Oh, I should caution though that you should also be a fan of fantastic writing and extreme emotional believability, in addition to that other stuff. This book is INTENSE.

And highly recommended. Thanks to Jennifer for pointing it out.

UPDATED: And it’s now up for the Andre Norton Award; yet another reason to check it out.

Henry Farrell has posted a fascinating email exchange with China Mieville about Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, which I bought ages ago but haven’t gotten to yet. A snippet:

CM – It’ll be interesting to see where he goes next. It’ll be quite hard to step back from this, back to another pre-Apocalypse moment, however conceived. Perhaps a drawing-room comedy…

I mean, didn’t you think the roasted baby was just, y’know, a little bit camp?

Go there for the more serious parts of the discussion. (Via Niall.)

Check out the 2007 American Library Association award winners in all the children’s/YA categories at YALSA (or the ALA has now updated their site). The Printz went to Gene Yang’s American Born Chinese (with honorable mentions to S&S favorites M.T. Anderson, John Green, Marcus Zusak and Sonya Hartnett). It’s nice to see a graphic novel win the top honor, so I won’t even carp about how Anderson was robbed.

Oh, and congratulations to Cynthia Lord for her Newbery Honor and Schneider Award!

See also:

Reaction from Kelly at Big A little a
and from winner Cynthia
and J.L. Bell on serious themes in the honored books
and John Green jumping up and down (not at all like a little girl)
and Maureen Johnson cracks hilariously wise