A sampling of many books that could be read alongside Life as We Knew It.
Many annotations courtesy of WorldCat.
The end of the world as we know it...
Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse edited by John Joseph Adams
Presents a collection of short stories from such authors as Stephen King, Orson Scott Card, John Langan, and Octavia E. Butler, all which focus on the end of the world.
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
When the armies of Heaven and Hell decide it's time for Armageddon, a demon and an angel decide they like life on earth and team up to stop the coming Apocalypse.
The Stand by Stephen King
When a disease wipes out most of humankind, the survivors gather to create a new society and to battle a force of pure evil in human form unleashed upon the world.
the dead and the gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer
After a meteor hits the moon and sets off a series of horrific climate changes, seventeen-year-old Alex Morales must take care of his sisters alone in the chaos of New York City.
Post end of the world...
Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Offred, a Handmaid, describes life in what was once the United States, now the Republic of Gilead, a shockingly repressive and intolerant monotheocracy, in a satirical tour de force set in the near future.
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
A totalitarian regime has ordered all books to be destroyed, but one of the book burners suddenly realizes their merit.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
In a future North America, where the rulers of Panem maintain control through an annual televised survival competition pitting young people from each of the twelve districts against one another, sixteen-year-old Katniss's skills are put to the test when she voluntarily takes her younger sister's place.
The City of Ember (and series) by Jeanne DuPrau
In the year 241, twelve-year-old Lina trades jobs on Assignment Day to be a Messenger to run to new places in her decaying but beloved city, perhaps even to glimpse Unknown Regions.
Children of Men by P.D. James
In 2021, with the human race becoming extinct because of the infertility of all males, Oxford historian Theodore Faron is drawn into the schemes of an unlikely group of revolutionaries out to save society.
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Given his lifetime assignment at the Ceremony of Twelve, Jonas becomes the receiver of memories shared by only one other in his community and discovers the terrible truth about the society in which he lives.
He, She, and It by Marge Piercy
In the post-apocalyptic twenty-first century, Shira Shipman, a woman caught in a deadly struggle for information, becomes involved with an illegal cyborg, an involvement that has links to a seventeenth-century Kabbalist who gives life to a golem.
Uglies (and series) by Scott Westerfeld
Just before their sixteenth birthdays, when they will be transformed into beauties whose only job is to have a great time, Tally's best friend runs away and Tally must find her and turn her in, or never become pretty at all.
Not the world we know...
Feed by M. T. Anderson
In a future where most people have computer implants in their heads to control their environment, a boy meets an unusual girl who is in serious trouble.
Tithe: a modern faerie tale (and series) by Holly Black
After returning home from a tour with her mother's rock band, sixteen-year-old Kaye, who has been visited by faeries since childhood, discovers that she herself is a magical faerie creature with a special destiny.
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
An account of the decade-long conflict between humankind and hordes of the predatory undead is told from the perspective of dozens of survivors who describe in their own words the epic human battle for survival.
Ender's Game (and series) by Orson Scott Card
Ender, at only six years old, thinks that he is just playing a computer game, but he is really fighting to save humanity from extinction.
This Place has No Atmosphere by Paula Danziger
Aurora loves her life on Earth in the twenty-first century, until she learns that her family is moving to the colony on the moon.
Grease Monkey by Tim Eldred
This graphic novel illustrates a future world where mysterious aliens have advanced the intelligence of simians, and where young Robin Plotnik, apprenticed to a cranky gorilla supervisor, works on an Earth defense station and becomes entangled in a scandal over a bet about the planet's top fighter squadrons.
The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm by Nancy Farmer
In 2194 in Zimbabwe, General Matsika's three children are kidnapped and put to work in a plastic mine while three mutant detectives use their special powers to search for them.
The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
In a future where humans despise clones, Matt enjoys special status as the young clone of El Patrón, the 142-year-old leader of a corrupt drug empire nestled between Mexico and the United States.
Alphabet of Dreams by Susan Fletcher
Fourteen-year-old Mitra, of royal Persian lineage, and her five-year-old brother Babak, whose dreams foretell the future, flee for their lives in the company of the magus Melchoir and two other Zoroastrian priests, traveling through Persia as they follow star signs leading to a newly-born king in Bethlehem. Mitra and her little brother, Babak, are beggars in the city of Rhagae, scratching out a living as best as they can with what they can beg for - or steal.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Six hundred years into the future, humans are bred by cloning, and "mother" and "father" are forbidden words. Originally published in 1932, Huxley's terrifying vision of a controlled and emotionless future "Utopian" society is truly startling in its prediction of modern scientific and cultural phenomena, including test-tube babies and rampant drug abuse.
Dreamhunter: Book One of the Dreamhunter Duet by Elizabeth Knox
In a world where select people can enter "The Place" and find dreams of every kind to share with others for a fee, a fifteen-year-old girl is training to be a dreamhunter when her father disappears, leaving her to carry on his mysterious mission.
Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr
Seventeen-year-old Aislinn, who has the rare ability to see faeries, is drawn against her will into a centuries-old battle between the Summer King and the Winter Queen, and the survival of her life, her love, and summer all hang in the balance.
1984 by George Orwell
While the totalitarianism that provoked George Orwell into writing Nineteen Eighty-Four seems to be passing into oblivion, his harrowing, cautionary tale of a man trapped in a political nightmare has had the opposite fate, and its relevance and power to disturb our complacency seem to grow decade by decade.
Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett
When witch-in-training Tiffany Aching accidentally interrupts the Dance of the Seasons and awakens the interest of the elemental spirit of Winter, she requires the help of the six-inch-high, sword-wielding, sheep-stealing Wee Free Men to put the seasons aright.
Other records of existence…
Fictional stories of the past and present:
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white farm town school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.
Before We were Free by Julia Alvarez
In the early 1960s in the Dominican Republic, twelve-year-old Anita learns that her family is involved in the underground movement to end the bloody rule of the dictator, General Trujillo.
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation by M. T. Anderson
Various diaries, letters, and other manuscripts chronicle the experiences of Octavian, a young African American, from birth to age sixteen, as he is brought up as part of a science experiment in the years leading up to and during the Revolutionary War.
Over a Thousand Hills I Walk with You by Hanna Jansen & Elizabeth D. Crawford
Before one fateful April day, Jeanne lived the life of a typical Rwandan girl: she fought with her little sister, went to school, and teased her brother. Then, in one horrifying night, everything changed. Political troubles unleashed a torrent of violence upon the Tutsi ethnic group. Jeanne's family, all Tutsis, fled their home and tried desperately to reach safety.
La Linea by Ann Jaramillo
When fifteen-year-old Miguel's time finally comes to leave his poor Mexican village, cross the border illegally, and join his parents in California, his younger sister's determination to join him soon imperils them both.
Hattie Big Sky by Larson Kirby
After inheriting her uncle's homesteading claim in Montana, sixteen-year-old orphan Hattie Brooks travels from Iowa in 1917 to make a home for herself and encounters some unexpected problems related to the war being fought in Europe.
Sold by Patricia McCormick
Thirteen-year-old Lakshmi leaves her poor mountain home in Nepal thinking that she is to work in the city as a maid only to find that she has been sold into the sex slave trade in India and that there is no hope of escape.
A Brief Chapter in My Impossible Life by Dana Reinhardt
Sixteen-year-old atheist Simone Turner-Bloom's life changes in unexpected ways when her parents convince her to make contact with her biological mother, an agnostic from a Jewish family who is losing her battle with cancer.
How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff
To get away from her pregnant stepmother in New York City, fifteen-year-old Daisy goes to England to stay with her aunt and cousins, with whom she instantly bonds, but soon war breaks out and rips apart the family while devastating the land.
Real stories of the past and present:
Freedom Riders: John Lewis and Jim Zwerg on the front lines of the civil rights movement by Ann Bausum
How did two youths - one raised in an all-black community in the deep South, the other brought up with only whites in the Midwest - become partners for freedom during the civil rights movement of the 1960s?
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah
This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers, but until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived.
Shark Girl by Kelly Bingham
After a shark attack causes the amputation of her right arm, fifteen-year-old Jane, an aspiring artist, struggles to come to terms with her loss and the changes it imposes on her day-to-day life and her plans for the future.
Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival by Anderson Cooper
From the tsunami in Sri Lanka to the war in Iraq to the starvation in Niger and ultimately to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and Mississippi, Cooper gives us a firsthand glimpse of the devastation that takes place, both physically and emotionally, when the normal order of things is violently ruptured on a massive scale.
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Discovered in the attic in which she spent the last years of her life, Anne Frank's remarkable diary has since become a world classic - a powerful reminder of the horrors of war and an eloquent testament to the human spirit. In 1942, with Nazis occupying Holland, a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl and her family fled their home in Amsterdam and went into hiding.
American Born Chinese by Gene Yang
This somewhat autobiographical graphic novel alternates three interrelated stories about the problems of young Chinese Americans trying to participate in the popular culture.
Mostly true survival stories and guides...
The Devil's Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival among America's Great White Sharks by Susan Casey
Journalist Casey first saw the great white sharks of the Farallon Islands, some longer than twenty feet, swirling around a small motorboat in a documentary. In a few months, Casey was being hoisted out of the early-winter swells on a crane, up a cliff face to the barren surface of Southeast Farallon Island, just 27 miles off the coast of San Francisco - dubbed by sailors in the 1850s the "devil's teeth."
The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals that Protect Us from Violence by Gavin De Becker
A personal security expert and behavioral consultant discusses the dangerous situations individuals may face, explains how to use the power of intuition to identify and avoid danger, and shares advice on restraining orders, self-defense tactics, and more.
Field Guide to the Apocalypse: Movie Survival Skills for the End of the World by Meghann Marco
Incorporating tips from films about world destruction, an offbeat field guide furnishes advice on how to deal with complex situations due to global thermonuclear war, sudden severe climate change, or the sun going supernova.
Prophecies & End-Time Speculations: The Shape of Things to Come by Kenneth McIntosh
Learn of the ancient prophecies that inspire end-time beliefs and what is to come in the future.
An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 by Jim Murphy
It's 1793, and there's an invisible killer roaming the streets of Philadelphia. The city's residents are fleeing in fear. This killer has a name, but everything else about it is a mystery.
Blizzard! The Storm that Changed America by Jim Murphy
Murphy presents a history, based on personal accounts and newspaper articles, of the massive snow storm that hit the Northeast in 1888, focusing on the events in New York City.
The Great Fire by Jim Murphy
By weaving personal accounts of actual survivors together with the carefully researched history of Chicago and the disaster, Murphy constructs a narrative that recreates the events, revealing how, even in a time of deepest despair, the human spirit triumphed, as the people of Chicago found the courage and strength to build their city once again.
Ice Bound: A Doctor's Incredible Battle for Survival at the South Pole by Jerri Nielsen and Mary Anne Vollers
A physician stranded at the South Pole describes how she discovered a lump in her breast, treated herself with a biopsy and chemotherapy, and was rescued by the Air National Guard, and reflects on her experiences and her colleagues. The Antarctic winter, with temperatures 100 below zero, shuts supply lines down completely; conditions are too treacherous for planes or boats and the only connection with the rest of the world is satellite hook-up.
Last Man Down: A New York City Fire Chief and the Collapse of the World by Richard Picciotto and Daniel Paisner
An inside look at the events of September 11, 2001 from a high-ranking FDNY officer describes the rescue efforts at Ground Zero and his personal ordeal of being buried for more than four hours in the rubble of the North Tower.
The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook by Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht
Experts provide step-by-step instructions for escaping from, avoiding, or surviving a wide range of dire situations.
Escape from Lucania: An Epic Story of Survival by David Roberts
Follows the historic 1937 expedition of Bradford Washburn and Bob Bates, describing the harsh conditions, limited supplies, unknown elements, and wilderness challenges they survived along their climb.
In other words (books in diary/journal format)...
The Diary of Pelly D. by L. J. Adlington
When a construction worker on a futuristic colony begins to question his own beliefs when he comes across the diary of a teenage girl whose life has been turned upside-down by holocaust-like events.
This is All: The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn by Aidan Chambers
In this powerful coming-of-age story, Cordelia Kenn recounts her life from age fifteen to twenty in a series of formats, such as letters, diaries, poems, and short stories, to be read in the future by her daughter.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Anonymous and intimate, Charlie's letters are singular and unique, hilarious and devastating, inviting us all to be drawn into the joy and anguish of a teenage life.
Wurst Case Scenario by Catherine Clark
Courtney is a vegetarian animal-rights activist from Colorado who records in her diary the events of the beginning of her freshman year at a Wisconsin college, surrounded by cheese- and meat-lovers.
Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman
The thirteen-year-old daughter of an English country knight keeps a journal in which she records the events of her life, particularly her longing for adventures beyond the usual role of women.
How My Private, Personal Journal Became a Bestseller by Julia DeVillers
One simple account from a private journal entry becomes a bestselling story almost overnight.
The Life History of a Star by Kelly Easton
To cope with the physical changes brought on by adolescence, as well as the emotional rollercoaster of her family's life following the tragedy of her older brother's physical and mental destruction in Vietnam, fourteen-year-old Kristin uses her diary to record her pain and confusion.
Storky: How I Lost My Nickname and Won the Girl by Debra Garfinkle
Michael "Storky" Pomerantz's journal describes his freshman year, from dealing with his mother's dating his dentist to attempting to win the heart of the girl he loves.
Don't You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey by Margaret Peterson Haddix
Sixteen-year-old Tish uses a journal for English class to chronicle the changes in her life when her abusive father returns home after a two-year absence.
The Amazing Life of Birds (the Twenty-day Puberty Journal of Duane Homer Leech) by Gary Paulsen
As twelve-year-old Duane endures the confusing and humiliating aspects of puberty, he watches a newborn bird in a nest on his windowsill begin to grow and become more independent, all of which he records in his journal.
Family of Strangers by Susan Beth Pfeffer
Through letters and essays, emotionally disturbed sixteen-year-old Abby chronicles her growing desperation in a family consisting of parents who seem devoid of love, one older sister bent on self-destruction, and another older sister who has always seemed perfect.
Related Movies
- 12 Monkeys (1995) R
- 28 Days Later (2002) R
- Armageddon (1998) PG-13
- Castaway (2000) PG-13
- Children of Men (2006) R
- A Cry in the Wild (1990) PG (based on Hatchet by Gary Paulsen)
- The Day After Tomorrow (2004) PG-13
- The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) G
- Deep Impact (1998) PG-13
- Diary of the Dead (2007) R
- Dr. Strangelove (1964) Not rated
- Fail-Safe (1964 & 2000) Both not rated
- The Fifth Element (1997) PG-13
- I Am Legend (2007) PG-13
- An Inconvenient Truth (2006) PG
- Independence Day (1996) PG-13
- The Matrix trilogy R
- The Omega Man (1971) PG
- Shaun of the Dead (2004) R
- Terminator series R
- Twister (1996) PG-13
- When Worlds Collide (1951) G
