Reading this post http://selfeducationofpat.blogspot.com/2008/07/john-christophers-tripods.html by my friend Pat made me think of a book I read when I was about 11 or 12. I'm one of those people who RARELY reads a book twice. I figure there's too much out there to revisit something I already read. This was an exception. I probably read it 10 times. I even read through it one day last year. I have the same copy that I originally got. I can't remember how I came upon it. School book club or book sale? Birthday book buying spree? Who knows. It had a huge impact on me though.
The book is about a 12 year old girl, Lisa, who reluctantly becomes the leader of a community of kids after a plague kills everyone on the planet over the age of puberty. There's anarchy, lack of food, lack of medical supplies, and roving bands of hooligans trying to steal what people have succeeded in secreting away.
This book is probably the reason that despite my general conservative political and social views I had a different kind of empathy for the people stranded and isolated in New Orleans after Katrina - without food, without clean water, without electricity, without medical care, and most importantly, without hope.
I would venture to guess that if you picked this up at the library and read it, it'd make you think.
1 comment:
Hey, that's a good one too. One of my wife's students gave her this book and we enjoyed it a lot too.
Pat
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