This is one summer book I looked forward picking up from the library. Described as an apocalyptic novel, it begins when 11 year old Julia's southern California town begins to experience a phenomena called The Slowing. The earth simply slows. Suddenly every day is a few minutes longer than the one before, then a few hours, then so out of balance that society is divided into the Real Timers and the Clock Timers. Julia's nervous mother fears the changes, her father reveals changes of heart, and Julia changes as all adolescents do. She gauges it all against the reactions of the boy she has a crush on. Early in the novel, Walker drops her theme statement into the middle of a paragraph - middle school itself is the age of miracles. Walker's writing doesn't sparkle as much as the promise of the perforated book jacket might promise, but Julia reminds us of the not-so-apocalyptic miracles of adolescence.
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