Stephanie Gayle

When I was in fourth grade our teacher read to us from a book called Z for Zacahariah, by Robert C. O'Brien. He also wrote Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. Z for Zachariah has nothing to do with rats. What's it about? Um, a post-nuclear war survivor named Ann who is, as far as she knows, the only person alive in the world. So now I remember why I spent much of my childhood waiting for the missiles to blow us up and dust the landscape with deadly radiation. Thanks public school story time! Now here is my therapy bill.

As it turns out, I still remembered the book enough to want to read it again (sort of like picking at a wound ). The book, published in 1974, is no longer in print, but there are copies for sale through second-hand book sellers.

Here's the cover. You can tell some bad shit is about to go down.

Ann is our sixteen-year-old post-apocalyptic survivor. The novel is told through her journal entries (the style of the prose is a bit sparse for that age and gender, but no matter). Ann has mad skills. She farms, she can shoot a gun, she knows a bit about how to take apart and put back together stoves. Basically she can survive in a world without people (or electricity!)

Allow me to insert a plea here to YA authors of today: please create amazing, strong female characters like Ann. They have existed! They are appealing! Girls AND boys will like them. They don't need magic or credit cards. Okay, end rant.

Ann's less than ideal world grows more complicated when a person dressed in a green plastic radiation suit approaches. Suddenly she's no longer alone in the world. But surprise! That's not necessarily a good thing. Mr. Loomis, Adam to Ann's Eve, is a scientist who happens to be a bit of a control freak. He also thinks that novels are frivolous (novel haters=the evil). He tries to molest Ann. Again, why did they choose to read this to us in fourth grade? Had we been acting up? Okay, so the attempted assault scene is brief, but um, fourth grade....Hell, reading it now still gives me the jibblies.

Ann, however, proves a fearsome contender. She didn't survive for over a year on her own because a house elf was helping her. Ann is terrific because while she's practical and clever, she's also vulnerable and has dreams that she realizes will not come to pass given her situation.

Here's a sample paragraph:
And I thought: what would it be like, ten years from now, to be up here gathering greens some morning with children of my own? But that made me feel lonesome for my mother, a feeling I have tried hard to avoid. So I stood up to change the subject. I got out my pocketknife and cut a bunch of apple blossoms.

Damn I love that sentence, "So I stood up to change the subject." I can't tell you how much I wished I'd written it.

If you're less than terrified by post-nuclear scenarios and you're older than ten, consider reading this book. It's the sort of thing you'll remember two decades later.