The Age of Miracles

"At the beginning, people stood on street corners and shouted about the end of the world...The freeways were clogged immediately. People heard the news, and they wanted to move. Families piled into minivans and crossed state lines. They scurried in every direction like small animals caught suddenly under a light. But, of course, there was nowhere to go."

In these few sentences, author, Karen Thompson Walker, sets the stage for a novel about a middle school girl coming of age. The book chronicles the story from pre-teen, Julia's perspective, as life resumes in the face of a global crisis. Julia throughout the book describes the uncertainty of growing up, the fear of not being able to fit in, the fear of losing friends, and the fear of never impressing the boy in math class. What makes "The Age of Miracles" different from any other coming of age story, is that Julia's is taking place while it appears that the world is coming to an end.

The book presents the demise of humanity as a 'slowing' where the world increasingly becomes more uninhabitable for its residents. First, this occurs with longer periods of day and night, changes in the tides, and the devastation to many of the worlds' migratory animals, like the birds that Julia sees fall out of the sky. Earth's population scrambles to find answers, develop a sustainable food supply, and keep order in a time where people who no longer follow 'clock time' are considered dangerous.

The book is a wonderful read. On it's face, it is a book about a girl learning about the world around her as it drastically changes. Look deeper, and the book resonates to the core of our culture. In an age where fears of global warming are increasing and more evidence points to the changes happening to Earth's climate, the youth of a not so distant tomorrow may find themselves having a similar experience to the one, Ms. Walker describes for Julia.