THE AGE OF MIRACLES
The Age of Miracles. Karen Thompson Walker; 2012, Random House.
On a day much like any other day in southern California, a nervous mom draws the attention of her husband and eleven-year-old daughter (narrator of the story) to a news report that the earth has slowed a few minutes in its rotation. At first it is barely detectable, except that birds start falling out of the sky – they are already stressed by so many other environmental insults, this apparently is the final blow. As time goes on, the days grow longer followed by longer nights. Some people try to live their lives according to the new periods of light and dark, moving into communities that order their activities by working through the longer days and and sleeping through the longer nights, but ultimately that becomes impossible. Most go to blackout curtains and maintain a “normal” schedule, although that can mean breakfast in midnight darkness at 9 a.m. Communities come apart, as people are sequestered behind their curtains and seldom run into each other outside, as sun exposure has become lethal. Vegetation dies off, unable to sustain itself under circumstances of too much sun followed by no sun. Agriculture is impossible. As always, the most terrible mass starvation takes place in faraway countries off-camera; Americans have home-based and commercial greenhouses to grow their food.
I read the book as a parable of climate change. It is a quiet book that you discover has left you with a quiet, persistent grief. Is this appropriate reading for middle graders? Sure, Old Yeller has to die, but the whole earth? Given the world they are growing up in, I would say yes. There are real heroes in the book, the narrator among them, who summon the courage and creativity to reinvent life under new circumstances. The best of the human spirit continues.
On a day much like any other day in southern California, a nervous mom draws the attention of her husband and eleven-year-old daughter (narrator of the story) to a news report that the earth has slowed a few minutes in its rotation. At first it is barely detectable, except that birds start falling out of the sky – they are already stressed by so many other environmental insults, this apparently is the final blow. As time goes on, the days grow longer followed by longer nights. Some people try to live their lives according to the new periods of light and dark, moving into communities that order their activities by working through the longer days and and sleeping through the longer nights, but ultimately that becomes impossible. Most go to blackout curtains and maintain a “normal” schedule, although that can mean breakfast in midnight darkness at 9 a.m. Communities come apart, as people are sequestered behind their curtains and seldom run into each other outside, as sun exposure has become lethal. Vegetation dies off, unable to sustain itself under circumstances of too much sun followed by no sun. Agriculture is impossible. As always, the most terrible mass starvation takes place in faraway countries off-camera; Americans have home-based and commercial greenhouses to grow their food.
I read the book as a parable of climate change. It is a quiet book that you discover has left you with a quiet, persistent grief. Is this appropriate reading for middle graders? Sure, Old Yeller has to die, but the whole earth? Given the world they are growing up in, I would say yes. There are real heroes in the book, the narrator among them, who summon the courage and creativity to reinvent life under new circumstances. The best of the human spirit continues.
