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Susan Beth Pfeffer is one of those authors from the 80's that I grew up reading, so I thought I would give one of her current young adult novels a shot. This is a truly remarkable and in some ways very realistic portrayal of a teen and her family experiencing and surviving a natural disaster, probably meant to cash in on the global warming hysteria although a different subject is used. Miranda is a realistic teen with an average white american family, learning to experience survival at its hardest. My only two real complaints about this novel are 1) Did we REALLY have to include politics? Yes, we all get that the mainstream establishment hated Bush and has a real hard on for Fox News, but does that have any place in a teen novel? Kids are already taught what to think instead of how to think in schools and this type of bias adds to it. 2) Miranda's town seems to exist in an all white vaccuum with no marauding gangs of illegal aliens and recent immigrants or crackheads from the city coming to suburbia to steal the food & supplies, which is exactly what will happen in any real sort of disaster. (What will people on welfare do when the checks stop coming? You can bet they won't have stocked up on canned goods.) The author does touch briefly on the dangers that women & girls face, but that is eventually glossed over when a supposedly kidnapped girl surfaces and Miranda realizes it was just rumor. Granted this is meant for teens so real violence was likely avoided on purpose.Aside from its troubling liberal bias (especially now that I've learned schools are assigning this book), it is a beautifully written novel and will evoke tears throughout. ***edit**** One point I forgot to add is that this is described as taking place in rural PA....why weren't these people hunting deer for meat?? Were they so liberal they thought they could survive without guns? Even if they would rather starve than kill an animal, they would still need guns for protection...so this point was very unrealistic. The only time guns were mentioned was in association with criminals.