How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff

Bibliographic Data

Rosoff, Meg. How I Live Now. New York: Wendy Lamb, 2006. Print.

Summary

Meg Rosoff’s How I Live Now is a story about a teenager whose remarried father sends her to live with her Aunt Penn in England.  Just as Daisy begins to adjust to country living with her four cousins, Osbert, Edmond, Isaac, and Piper, The War breaks out, and Aunt Penn is unable to return from Norway where she is doing “war work.”  The teens are on their own, experiencing freedom at first, then separation, privation, and violence brought on by The War.  Daisy determines to reunite with her cousins, especially Edmond with whom she had fallen in love, even if it means surviving in the midst of foreign occupation.

Analysis

Meg Rosoff’s How I Live Now is a first-person, science-fiction narrative of a teenager’s survival in the face of being sent away to live in a foreign country with an aunt and cousins only known from pictures and of being caught in the midst of a nameless and threatening wartime occupation. 

The setting of the novel is a modern England of the future, but during a fictional war between the English and an occupying force.  Rosoff uses capital letters to refer to anything associated with the war in order to keep the reader aware of the setting, but not to name it specifically.  For example, she capitalizes “Them and Us,” “Things Happened,” and “Hostage Situation with Sixty Million Hostages.”

The main character, Daisy, is a precocious fifteen-year-old with a quick sense of humor which she shares with the reader and her cousins.  As the story progresses, Daisy begins to invest in her “new” family only to have The War interfere and cause heartache and separation.  A substantial portion of the story involves how she and her youngest cousin, Piper, survive as they attempt to find the other cousins and avoid being captured by the Occupiers.  Daisy is changed by her experienced from a sassy stranger into a protector and caretaker who is responsible for others’ welfare.

One strength of How I Live Now is in the portrayal of Daisy.  She is believable, funny, perceptive and strong.  She is introspective and expressive about her situations.  For example, in talking about Piper’s feelings about having to run and hide from the Occupiers, Daisy says, “I didn’t have to ask why she was crying.  The fact that we were clean and more or less safe just made the absences more glaring and for all my longing after Edmond at least I’d come to terms with losing my mother a long time ago but all Piper had left out of a mother and three brothers was me, a dog, and a whole lot of unanswered questions” (154). Another strength in the novel is the suspense created by the nameless war background.  The reader is always conscious of the possibility of violence if Daisy and Piper are caught.

The novel has no real weaknesses.  Perhaps the stylistic use of extremely long sentences through most of the novel is somewhat distracting, and the reader may lose focus sometimes trying to absorb all the information at once.  Rosoff  may have been deliberately making several sentences into a run-on in order to show Daisy’s breathless way of coping with her situation because towards the end of the novel, the sentences are of average length and even short, demonstrating that Daisy has gained control and strength from her experiences.

How I Live Now would appeal to young adults on several levels.  What teenager wouldn’t like to live without adult supervision, which was the case when Aunt Penn could not return to her family because of The War?  Teenagers might like the mix of realistic detail with a hypothetical experience. The fact that there is also an available film based on the novel would be of interest to teens.

Rosoff’s How I Live Now is developmentally appropriate for teens.  Incidences of incestual sexual behavior, violence, and abandonment are subtly portrayed; however, teens would find Daisy’s sometimes witty commentary a comic relief to those circumstances.

As an award winner, Rosoff’s How I Live Now has a place in Young Adult (YA) literature.  It was the winner of the 2005 Michael L. Printz Award, the 2004 Guardian Award for Children’s Fiction, and the 2005 Branford Boase Award for a First Novel.

Activity

War Survival Scavenger Hunt

Playing on the survival scenarios in the novel, I propose a War Survival Scavenger Hunt.  This activity not only supports the novel, but also engages the teens in teamwork, knowledge of their library, cultural and survival literacies, critical thinking, and a fun challenge.

This program would consist of teens searching the library for items, necessary to basic survival, based on a handout with clues as to where items can be located.  For example, cans of food would be located by the book Andy Warhol and the can that sold the world by Gary Indiana in the 759s.  The teens would have a backpack which could hold only so many items or so much weight.  Each item would be worth so many points.  The teen or team of teens with the highest points in survival items wins a prize.  To create suspense, obstacles could be created, such as Occupying Soldiers trying to capture the teens or confiscate their items and bring them back start over. 

Related Resources

1.  Eating Mud Crabs in Kandahar: Stories of Food during Wartime by the World’s Leading Correspondents by Matthew McAllester

Eating Mud Crabs in Kandahar is a collection of stories told by journalists of their food and eating experiences when they were on assignment in war zones.  It gives the reader information about the countries’ cultures and conflicts in addition to the availability of food.

McAllester, Matthew. Eating Mud Crabs in Kandahar Stories of Food during Wartime by the World's Leading Correspondents. Berkeley: U of California, 2011. Print.

2.   Build the Perfect Bug out Survival Skills by Creek Stewart

Creek has written several survival books, and Build the Perfect Bug out Survival Skills is meant to teach how to cope in a survival situation to provide shelter, clean water, warmth, and food.  He covers how to survive with only primitive means, explaining skills with photos and step-by-step instructions.

Stewart, Creek. Build the Perfect Bug out Survival Skills: Your Guide to Emergency Wilderness Survival. Living Ready, 2015. Print.

Published Review

Baker, Deirdre F. Rev. of How I Live Now. Meg Rosff. Horn Book Magazine 80.5(2004): 597-598. Web 10 July 2015.