IRead Journal Prompt #1 for Life As We Knew It

                Miranda Evans, the protagonist in Life As We Knew It, was an average sixteen year-old girl. She was on the swim team and loved to figure skate occasionally. Her parents are divorced and she has a younger brother Jon, along with an older brother Matt. Miranda was just a normal teenager when a terrible disaster struck.

     Everyone was outside watching when the meteor hit the moon that night. It was a worldwide event. All of Miranda’s neighbors were outside on the street, looking up at the moon not knowing what to expect. Everyone’s excitement grew when they saw the meteor crash. All of a sudden, the moon became bigger. The moon moved closer to Earth and tornadoes, tsunamis, and volcanoes started erupting around the world. The next day when she was at school, her mom came to get her and they went to the grocery store. They bought shopping carts loaded with food and started to prepare for the worst. Little did Miranda know, her mom was right about getting ready for a disaster.

     Miranda realized how horrible this tragedy is when she saw her close loved ones die. After experiencing personal loss, Miranda’s character grew stronger. “I sat silently by her side for a while, mostly to see if I was going to cry, but I didn’t and I knew I couldn’t sit there forever, no matter how peaceful it was (Pfeffer 240).”

     Miranda becomes more mature as she gets used to this new world she now lives in. She starts to see no hope about continuing her life. She became confident about dying if she knew that her stepmother, Lisa, had the baby and her dad was okay. She struggled to get to the post office to see if the letter had arrived from her father. She thought that if there was new life out there, she would not need to keep fighting for her own. “I need to know that life is continuing (Pfeffer 327).” She knew she was dying and had no strength to get back home once she was at the post office.

     She saw something bright that caught her eye. It was a yellow piece of paper. “Someone sometime had said something and now I would know what it was (Pfeffer 332).” As it turned out, that yellow piece of paper symbolized hope. It was a letter from the Mayor offering free food. The free food saved not only Miranda’s life, but the life of her family.  After Miranda arrived home with the food, she found that the electricity was staying on more regularly.  Symbolically, the food and the electricity represent normalcy may be returning to their world once again. 

 

     Miranda’s character becomes accepting of herself through all of the occurrences in the story.  In the end, when Miranda turns seven teen, she reflects on why she still keeps the journal.  She decides that it is for many reasons, but, the main reason is for remembering her life as it was. 

 

Pfeffer, Susan Beth. Life as We Knew It. Orlando: Harcourt, 2006. Print.