HOW I LIVE NOW by Meg Rosoff

(Source: Rosoff, Meg. 2004. New York: Random House. Photo Source: Random House, Inc., http://www.randomhouse.com/author/results.pperl?authorid=58449, accessed November 13, 2008)

1. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Rosoff, Meg. 2004. How I live now. New York: Random House. ISBN: 0-385-74677-6.

2. PLOT SUMMARY: Elizabeth, a.k.a. Daisy, a 15-year old native New Yorker, is sent by her father to live with her deceased mother’s sister, Aunt Penn, in England. Daisy is not very happy about living in the English countryside with her aunt and four cousins, ages nine through sixteen. While there, a terroristic war breaks out in Europe and the United States. England is occupied and, as circumstances would have it, the children are left on their own to survive through the war. This is the story of their relationships and their survival.

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS: This book was Ms. Rosoff’s first book and I believe it to be a wonderful, well written book, although several reviewers have disagreed. It seems that others agree with me, however, because this book won the Michael Printz Award as well as several other awards. Regardless of what critics say, I thinkg young reader will be entranced by the characters in this book. The language and style of writing is so typical of a teenager that the reader will feel like s/he is reading a friend's personal diary. For example, capital letters are inserted in odd places. They are used when new sentences would normally start or when quotation marks would typically be used. Run on sentences are the norm for this book and justifiably so because most teenagers talk in this run on fashion. Exaggeration and uncertainty of fact is also a big element in this book and something that is typical for teenagers. For example, when the war broke out, Daisy states that “something like seven or seventy thousand people got killed”.

In addition to the language of teenagers, the author writes about some major issues facing teenagers, some of which are taboo. For example, early in the book, and probably as a way to interest the young reader, Ms. Rosoff includes a passage relating to the issues of boys pressuring girls to have sex and masturbation. The issue of having sexual feelings toward a cousin is a major factor in this book and runs throughout its entirety. Another topic, of lesser importance but a major one for teenagers, is the lack of cell phones or text messaging. Ms. Rosoff also touches on the subject of the “wicked step mother”, the suicide of a friend’s parent, and the less talked about issue of eating disorders. The eating disorder issue was handled extremely well in this book. It is not a major topic of the story but rather an underlying message. Early in the book, Daisy describes how starving makes her feel good and gives her a good feeling of pushing herself beyond her physical limits. During the story, Daisy begins to realize what starvation really is and begins to appreciate what food does for the body. It is a subtle lesson for teenagers with eating disorder issues.

The setting for this story is in the countryside of England. A place most children will not be familiar with but it can be visualized as any location that is not a major city. This story is so captivating that it takes the reader to a whole different time and place. When reading the book, I envisioned the European countrysides of World War II as I have seen it in movies; perhaps young readers will do the same. While the setting might be reminiscent of World War II, the details of the war are not. The war described in the book is related to the terrorist threat that exists today. It is a war where it is hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys and where suicide bombers run rampant. It is a war during the time of e-mails, cell phones and Amana refrigerator freezers. The ending of the story is very unique, totally unexpected and a bit confusing at first. It seems that suddenly Daisy is back in New York City. It takes six years for her to return “home” to the farm in England and explain why she suddenly left the countryside home. When she does return, as a young adult woman, she is finally able to bring a conclusion to the story, deal with her feelings for her cousin and tell the reader “how i live now”.

The underlying theme of this story is independence. It is a story of survival through a war without adult assistance. It is also a story about believing in your own abilities and inner feelings. There is no moralizing in this story. The theme unfolds naturally as do the lessons about love, family and survival. It really is a most amazing story that I would recommend to high school age students, although some reviewers claim that it is for ages 12 and up. One final note about the reviews. One of the reviews suggested that this novel is fantasy. I don't see this book as fantasy. I would say that it is contemporary realistic fiction because of the issues it deals with. I don't think that it is appropriate to catagorize something as fantasy simply because we are not currently in a war. The war that is described is similar to wars of the past and realistic as to what a war might be like today.


4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S):

KNOWLEDGE QUEST, 34, no. 2 (November/December 2005) 56-8: “The combination of a first-person narrative, run-on sentences, and an absence of quotation marks successfully brings to life a modern teenage girl writing about her own experience.” (Source: Book Review Digest Plus, WilsonWeb database, accessed via TWU Library Online).

KIRKUS REVIEWS, (July 14, 2004): “The story of Daisy and her three exceptional cousins, one of whom becomes her first lover, offers a keen perspective on human courage and resilience.” (Source: Book Index with Reviews, EBSCO Host database, accessed via TWU Library Online).

BOOKLIST, (September 1, 2004): “More central to the potency of Rosoff's debut, though, is the ominous prognostication of what a third world war might look like, and the opportunity it provides for teens to imagine themselves, like Daisy, exhibiting courage and resilience in roles traditionally occupied by earlier generations.” (Source: Book Index with Reviews, EBSCO Host database, accessed via TWU Library Online).

5. CONNECTIONS TO SCHOOL LIBRARY SETTING:

* High school students could be involved in creating a video and placing it on YouTube. There are several YouTube examples to show students. One is similar to a movie trailer that was done by Random House for the 1996 Teen Book Video Awards and can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrIMYpyYX7A&feature=related (accessed November 18, 2008). Another is a booktalk format that can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEE98xuuc9w&feature=related (accessed November 18, 2008). A final example is a PowerPoint type presentation with nice music included and this can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wrZ0S8NpMU&feature=related (accessed November 18, 2008). The librarian could make a contest for the entire school to create videos. A voting system might be set up so that the student body can watch and vote for their favorite videos.

* Poetry related to war would be a good fit with this book. I found a website that provides poetry specifically about the war on terror: http://uk.geocities.com/p_rance/WaronTerror.htm (accessed November 18, 2008).

Other Items by Meg Rosoff:

What I was: A novel
Just in case
The bride’s farewell: A novel (to be released August 2009)