Over the summer I read a lot of books, but my favorite would have to be Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer. Life As We Knew It is a book about a 15-year-old named Miranda. She lives with her two brothers, Matt and Jon, and with her mom. She lives a relatively normal life until one day an asteroid knocks the moon closer to the earth. After that nothing is the same, there is flooding and volcanic eruptions, drought and loss of sunlight. Famine strikes and there are shortages of everything. Miranda and her family have to learn to survive on their own. They endure a lot of hardships and struggle to do things that we do so easily in our daily lives. The book Life As We Knew It made me think of the things we have that we take for granted.
One way that it made me recognize the things we take for granted is how her family struggles to do things that we can easily do in our daily lives. For example, her brothers have to go on three day fishing trips just to provide enough food for only a week or two. We can easily go to the store and buy food and don't think twice about it. We take food for granted because there is so much of it around us and, it is so accessible to us. Her family has to go through a lot just to get food that barely filled their stomach's. Another example is, her mom and her had to cut off all their hair because they were unable to care for it. Although this is a small sacrifice it is something that we definitely take for granted, its just another thing to do in your routine but, to Miranda and her mom it was impossible. Another example was that there was no way for her and her brothers to learn. They learned a lot of living skills but they couldn't learn the things you would normally learn at school. For most people my age it is a chore to go to school and not something that we look forward to. School is something we are so lucky to have but take for granted.
Secondly, it made me realize what we take for granted because we have a lot of access to natural resources, and her family had to survive with a very limited amount of them. For example, her family had to collect rain water and then boil it to drink, but at times there was drought so they had to drink little to no water a day. For me, having lived in New York my whole life, I definitely don't appreciate how I have a near infinite amount of water accessible to me at all times. Another example is that her and her family couldn't do laundry and they had to wear dirty clothes. My family and I definitely don't even think twice about throwing a load of laundry into the washer, and its hard to imagine not having access to such a simple luxury. Another example is that nothing could grow because the sky was covered in ash from volcanic eruptions. No food was being produced and there was no eco-system which threw off the whole world, literally.
Lastly, this book relates to teens across the globe because although we are fortunate enough to live in a place where there is a lot less famine, drought and lack of resources, there are still places in the world where that is not the case. We need to remember this and try to help to the best of our abilities. We also need to protect our environment. For Example, on Sunday there is a march in Columbus Circle, if a lot of people show up we could really make a change and show how global warming is a big problem and needs to be dealt with immediately. In conclusion, Life As We Knew It is a book that I really enjoyed reading and really makes you count your blessing and think of ways that we could help the less fortunate.
