Ah my childhood and even adult life has been marked quite happily by the Blume books. There are some scary moments when the planes hit – the first plane narrowly misses a building where a group of 100 children are gathered the second skims the roof of a high school, shortly after the girls leave for the day and the final plane actually crashes only yards from a children’s home –Īccounts of the real plane crashes can be found here –Ī Judy Blume book is always an event. What follows is a struggle to survive and cope with life now that the world has changed. “I’m talking to anyone who has a story to tell, and so far, that’s pretty much everyone.” Miri is Blume’s fictional alter ego (she’s the same age as the author was at the time of the accidents), and she is the one at the heart and centre of the story.

And mark its anniversary?īack in the fifties, plane travel was unknown and exciting, something most people only dreamed of. So when three planes go down in a short space of time, the effects are harrowing. How do people cope and move on after such an event. So soon after the war, could it be a link to terrorism? Aliens? These and more conspiracy theories are the premise of In the Unlikely Event. Judy writes on her blog that it was a scary time and there was fear and panic in many people as they tried to work out what was going on. Where Steve and Phil were shooting basketsĪmazingly, the premise of three plane crashes within a short space of time actually happened in Elizabeth ,New Jersey, the hometown of the author. Place and setting Sayre Street – where Rusty lives Some people brought closer together and others fell apart. Judy Blume writes a haunting story of three generations of families, friends, and strangers, whose lives were changed that day.

This was when her life changed as did everyone else’s in that community.

But this was the 1950s when plane travel was new and exciting, when three planes fell from the sky within three months of each other. Aged fifteen, she remembers the carefree time of her first time in love. Miri Ammerman returns to her hometown to mark the anniversary of the worst year of her life. From the author of Are you there God, it’s me Margaret, Judy Blume takes us to New Jersey and a story for adults about how life goes on despite everything.

In the unlikely event review