50 Fun Facts About Life as We Knew It

In Life As We Knew It, which landmark is reported washed away on the night the Moon is struck?

The Statue of Liberty is swept off by the first giant tides, and the same broadcast reports Cape Cod and the East Coast's barrier islands under water.

What does the asteroid strike do to the Moon in Life As We Knew It, setting off worldwide disasters?

The impact knocks it closer to Earth because the asteroid is denser than astronomers predicted, and the nearer Moon's stronger pull throws the tides into chaos.

Which pantry treat does Miranda devour in secret in Life As We Knew It, costing her days of meals?

Chocolate chips were being saved for Matt's birthday, and a furious Laura makes Miranda finish the whole bag before barring her from family meals.

What is the name of the Evans family cat in Life As We Knew It, who vanishes for days one July?

Horton slips out one night as Miranda comes in, and Matt warns that someone may have killed him for food before he turns up yowling at the door.

What turns the summer sky permanently gray in Life As We Knew It, killing the family's garden?

Volcanic eruptions around the world, set off by the Moon's stronger pull, throw up an ash cloud that blocks the sun for months and sends temperatures plunging.

Which room do the Evanses all move into for winter in Life As We Knew It, relying on its wood stove?

The sunroom holds the house's wood stove, so by November the whole family eats, sleeps and cooks there, and Miranda begs one last night in the house before giving up her privacy.

What does Miranda use to reach the hospital in Life As We Knew It when snow traps her sick family?

Cross-country skis are the family's only way out after four feet of snow, and Matt's New Year's resolution was for all three siblings to master them.

Which illness sweeps through Miranda's town in Life As We Knew It, sparing her alone in the household?

The flu empties the hospital of all but two nurses, so Miranda must nurse her mother and both brothers back to health alone.

What catches Miranda's eye on a deserted street in Life As We Knew It, leading her to food?

A yellow flyer stands out because Miranda has seen nothing bright in months of gray, and chasing it stops her from lying down in the snow to die.

What role does Miranda's stepmother Lisa ask her to take for the coming baby in Life As We Knew It?

Godmother is an honor Miranda accepts in the novel's opening pages while feeling overwhelmed, and she wonders why her brothers were not asked too.

Life As We Knew It is told entirely in which form, written by sixteen-year-old Miranda Evans?

Diary entries were dropped for the sequel, whose author said she could not picture a teenage boy keeping one.

In which US state is Howell, the fictional hometown of Miranda Evans in Life As We Knew It?

Pennsylvania keeps the Evanses far enough inland to escape the giant waves that drown the coasts, though not the cold and hunger that follow.

In Life As We Knew It, which sport does Miranda's younger brother attend summer camp for?

Baseball matters so much to him that he worries a poor diet will stop him growing tall enough to play professionally.

In Life As We Knew It, whom does Miranda believe her mother is betting on to survive?

Jonny, the youngest, is quietly kept on fuller rations while the others skip meals, which Miranda resents before she comes to accept the logic.

Which friend of Miranda's gives away her school lunch and fasts for her faith in Life As We Knew It?

Megan follows Reverend Marshall's teaching that the disasters are punishment for sin, and she eventually starves to death.

In Life As We Knew It, which elderly neighbor joins the Evanses' frantic supermarket trip?

Mrs. Nesbitt grew up with Laura's parents and counts as family, and before she dies she tells Miranda to take every useful thing in her house.

What is the job of Peter, Laura's boyfriend in Life As We Knew It, whose visits tend to bring bad news?

Doctor Peter Elliot closes his own practice to work 18-hour days at the hospital, and he dies in the winter epidemic.

Miranda Evans belongs to which school team in Life As We Knew It, later practicing at Miller's Pond?

Swimming moves outdoors when the school pool cannot be filtered without power, and at the pond Miranda grows close to her teammate Dan.

Which injury does Laura Evans suffer twice in Life As We Knew It, keeping her downstairs?

A sprained ankle sounds minor, but armed guards will not let Miranda into the hospital to fetch help, and she is left begging at the door.

Which author wrote Life As We Knew It after more than thirty years of writing for young readers?

Susan Beth Pfeffer had published dozens of books before this one became her bestseller, and three sequels about the same disaster followed.

Which figure skater does Miranda idolize in Life As We Knew It and later meet on a frozen pond?

Brandon Erlich once trained with Miranda's old coach, and after their skate together she is never sure the meeting really happened.

In Life As We Knew It, what name does Miranda give the baby sister she can only imagine?

Rachel is the name Miranda invents once her stepmother's due date passes, because no word ever arrives to say whether the baby was born.

Which late friend appears in Miranda's dreams in Life As We Knew It, guarding the gates of heaven?

Becky died after a long illness before the story begins, and in the dreams she tells Miranda she cannot come in because she is still alive.

Miranda's friend Sammi leaves home in Life As We Knew It with a forty-year-old man bound for which city?

Nashville is where George, who has given her parents supplies, promises a better life, and Sammi's own mother urges her to go.

What do Dan's parents swap their car for in Life As We Knew It so that he can leave town alone?

A motorcycle gives Dan a chance to survive on his own, and he tells Miranda goodbye at the hospital where his mother lies ill.

Which illness does Peter warn about in Life As We Knew It when he urges the family to buy bug repellent?

West Nile virus is spread by mosquitoes, and Peter tells them to pay whatever repellent costs; it later puts Dan's mother in the hospital.

Which purchase is Miranda proud of thinking up herself on the big shopping trip in Life As We Knew It?

Oil lamps prove their worth months later, when Miranda stands in a blizzard holding one to guide Matt home from town.

How does the powerless supermarket charge shoppers in Life As We Knew It the day after the impact?

A flat price per cart, $100 in cash, sends Laura's team back for load after load, and one man even tries to steal a full one from them.

In Life As We Knew It, an elderly neighbor likens the shortages to rationing in which conflict?

World War II rationing is her proof that ordinary people cope, a reassurance she offers just as the power cuts out again.

In Life As We Knew It, what do the Evanses store in their emptied dining room to keep it safe?

Firewood is too precious to leave outdoors, so Laura moves out her antique furniture and Hal spends his short visit helping Matt cut more.

What does Matt bring home from the black market in Life As We Knew It for a belated Thanksgiving dinner?

A chicken, and a small one, arrives with Peter as a guest the day after the holiday, and Miranda prefers not to ask what Matt traded for it.

What does Matt buy on the black market in Life As We Knew It to cover the windows for insulation?

Plywood shuts out what natural light remains, which infuriates Miranda, and it comes from the same armed looters who frightened her in town.

What does Laura roast for a special February dinner in Life As We Knew It as the pantry runs low?

Tulip bulbs that Laura finds become a treat in a month when the family is down to one meal a day and Laura has almost stopped eating.

Which Christmas present thrills Miranda in Life As We Knew It because it belonged to her late neighbor?

A watch matters because her own had stopped months earlier, leaving her unable to tell the time under a sky that never changes.

What draws the Evanses outdoors on Christmas Eve in Life As We Knew It, after months of isolation?

A group of carolers in the road turns out to be people the family has not seen in months, and nobody expects to gather again soon.

What do all the Evanses do in October in Life As We Knew It because washing has become so hard?

They cut off their hair once the gas runs out and water can only be heated on the wood stove, which ends the weekly showers.

In Life As We Knew It, what does Miranda fear Matt has strained by hauling the sick out of the smoke?

His heart never seems the same: weeks later Matt still cannot climb a flight of stairs, and he worries he will become a burden.

What does Miranda burn through the night in Life As We Knew It to dry out the smoking wood stove?

Textbooks go into the fire after snow or ice falls down the chimney and fills the room with smoke while the rest of the family lies ill.

Where is food being handed out in Life As We Knew It when a starving Miranda walks into town in March?

City Hall had been giving out one bag per person for four weeks, and the men running it drive Miranda home with enough for her whole family.

Where does Matt volunteer on Fridays in Life As We Knew It so that the service can stay open?

The post office is the family's only link to Hal, and Matt is working there when the first blizzard strikes and nearly keeps him from getting home.

Which Life As We Knew It sequel is told through a boy living in New York City?

The Dead and the Gone runs over the same months as Miranda's story, and its hero later turns up at her door in the third book.

Which disaster film, seen one Thanksgiving weekend, inspired the author of Life As We Knew It?

Meteor, a 1979 film starring Sean Connery, set her wondering how children would cope with a catastrophe they could do nothing about.

Hal and Lisa leave Miranda's home in Life As We Knew It hoping to reach Lisa's parents in which state?

Colorado lies beyond a state border that will not admit them, so the couple's final letters come from a crude refugee camp.

Matt Evans is away at college in which New York town in Life As We Knew It when the Moon is struck?

Ithaca is where Matt finds a payphone that night to say things are just as bad there, and he does not reach home for another week.

Which New York teenager arrives at Miranda's home in the second sequel to Life As We Knew It?

Alex Morales arrives with Miranda's father after meeting him at an evacuation camp, and he and Miranda plan to marry before a tornado strikes.

In This World We Live In, a sequel to Life As We Knew It, what is Hal and Lisa's newborn son called?

Gabriel was born on Christmas Day, and one early draft of the book made him a teenager struggling to rejoin his half-siblings.

What does Miranda notice about Reverend Marshall in Life As We Knew It while his congregation starves?

He has not lost weight because he eats the food his followers bring as offerings, and Miranda is marched out of the church for saying so.

Life As We Knew It ends on which occasion for Miranda, marked by a second delivery of food?

Her seventeenth birthday falls on March 20, three days after she walked into town expecting never to come back.

On July 20 in Life As We Knew It, Miranda bitterly notes the anniversary of which event?

The first Moon landing is a date she remembers from the themed homework every teacher set in May, and she wishes the astronauts had blown the thing up.

In Life As We Knew It, what does Peter give the Evanses to wear outdoors as the air worsens?

Surgical masks are his answer to a wave of asthma brought on by the filthy air, and he hands them out on the day of Laura's first bad fall.