After listening to Pfeffer and Gaskil, Ph.D, I am much more comfortable with the concept of the apocalyptic literary genre for older children. (I had forgotten how important the issue of control is -- at every age.

And thanks for introducing us to Pfeffer. I see she's authored 75 books, with only two in the end-of-world scheme, so she offers a wealth of reading.

Thanks for having Susan Beth Pfeffer on your show. I've read her two books and thoroughly enjoyed them. Her characters are real and the plot is believable. I want miranda and Alex to be students in my classes!

"Z. for Zachariah" is great adolescent apocalypse book...I just re-read it this past year after reading Cormac McCarthy's "The Road"

Check out this week's hardcopy version of the Onion. The lead story is about Al Gore sending a space capsule pod to another planet from his doomed one a la Superman. Of course he becomes Gore-Al!

See Spot. See Spot run. Run, Spot, run from the impending nuclear holocaust. See Spot nuked, going up in flames, howling and shrieking.