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How I Live Now

2004 novel by Meg Rosoff

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 16, 2026
Entity authorityQ5917807
Source-derived summary

How I Live Now is a novel by Meg Rosoff, first published in 2004. It received generally positive reviews and won the British Guardian Children's Fiction Prize and the American Printz Award for young-adult literature.

Plot

Fifteen-year-old Elizabeth (who goes by the name of Daisy) is sent from the United States to stay with her aunt Penn and her children, Daisy's cousins, on a remote farm in the United Kingdom during the outbreak of a fictional third world war of the 21st century. Though she is happy about moving away from her stepmother who is pregnant, Daisy is homesick at first. First meeting her 14-year-old cousin Edmond at the airport, Daisy calls him "some kind of mutt"; however, her view of Edmond changes after settling in. Arriving at the farm she also meets Edmond's twin brother Isaac, nine-year-old Piper, and Osbert, who is the eldest brother. Daisy's homesickness only lasts for a short while before she and her extended family become close, and Daisy begins to embrace her new home. Daisy soon finds herself falling in love with Edmond and, after realising that the affection is mutual, begins a relationship with him.

Aunt Penn travels to Oslo, where she is stranded after war breaks out. An unknown enemy occupies the UK. The war becomes increasingly difficult for Daisy and her cousins as it increasingly affects their lives, eventually leading to food shortages and lack of other resources.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “How I Live Now” as 2004 novel by Meg Rosoff. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Live, novel and Rosoff.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2004—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2004-08-05. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Live, novel and Rosoff providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “How I Live Now”, the useful work is to connect “2004 novel by Meg Rosoff” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5917807. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2004.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “How I Live Now”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow How I Live Now primary sources, How I Live Now archive and Live research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “How I Live Now”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from How I Live Now” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.