THE AGE OF MIRACLES by Karen Thompson Walker

Finished Tu 8/28/12

My Post on Good Reads:

THE AGE OF MIRACLES is the first person, personal story of Julia, a middle school student who lives in a contemporary California coastal town with her mother and father. Early one Fall, the days inexplicably become longer. At the beginning, it's only minutes per day, but within months, daylight and nighttime might last for the old equivalent of several weeks. This is not a SciFi Thriller, and the 'temporal dysfunction' is only a literary device to demonstrate how people cope and deal with cataclysmic change. 

I guess the whole novel could be taken as a metaphor that life is only temporary, and, as people, our only legacy is that, "We Were Here", and learn to accept and celebrate this unalterable fact. 

Walker's writing style is lyrical, and deeply moving. This is a beautiful novel that's compelling, as well as thought provoking. This is a terrific debut novel, and I look forward to more books by Karen Thompson Walker. 

My notes;

"We Were Here" (What Julia and Seth wrote on the wet cement sidewalk at the end of the novel)

Joel, Helen, Julia (She is eleven and twelve through most of the novel; 5th 6th grader)
Hanna- Julia's friend
Sylvia- Neighbor and piano teacher. Possible lover of Joel
Michaela- Julia's friend who was old beyond her years. Her mother is much younger than the other mothers.
Far into 'the event' she and her mother's new man move to a very expensive gated community.
Chole and Tony- Julia's cats
Tom and Carlotta- Older couple that live on Julia's stream. Arrested for growing marijuana.
Seth Moreno- Boyfriend of Julia's. His father is a scientist who is working on plants that can grow without life. Hopes to splice genes with undersea plants.
Gabby- Goth friend of Julia's. Shaves her head and wears black nail polish. She flees to desert community of "Circadia". (definition of 'circadian'-Relating to or exhibiting approximately 24-hour periodicity)
Joel's father, Julia's grandfather- Lives in a sprawling old house in the center of a new housing development. He is a 'hoarder' and dies in an accidental fall while stocking his secret bomb shelter that had been there since the early sixties. This happened on Julia's birthday, and the family was to meet him to take him to the birthday dinner. He died with a birthday card and a twenty dollar bill in his pocket for Julia.

Mr. Jensen- Hippie science teacher. He leaves early in the novel; probably headed to a desert community. These people live by the earth and sun's rhythms, called "Real Timers". The government has mandated that people should live by a 24 hour clock. By the end of the novel, days and nights have stretched to days long. At one point, this southern California area got five inches of snow. Night lasts so long, the temperatures drop, and then, it snows. Plants are dying off. 

Eucalyptus trees were introduced to California in 1850's from Australia. They were pretty much useless, but they took to the growing season of California. The tree in Sylvia's front yard falls on her house, and destroys her piano.
Whales dying/deterioration of the magnetic fields/birds are dying and falling out of the skies.

Helen, Julia's mother, is sick through most of the novel. She is affected by the lengthening of the days, and sometimes she is completely debilitated.