Introduction

In the tradition of Station Eleven, a literary thriller set partly on the roof of New York’s Museum of Natural History in a flooded future.

"Captivating...The setting, the detailed emotive descriptions, and nail-biting adventure are incandescent." —Library Journal (starred)

All the Water in the World is told in the voice of a girl gifted with a deep feeling for water. In the years after the glaciers melt, Nonie, her older sister and her parents and their researcher friends have stayed behind in an almost deserted New York City, creating a settlement on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History. The rule: Take from the exhibits only in dire need. They hunt and grow their food in Central Park as they work to save the collections of human history and science. When a superstorm breaches the city’s flood walls, Nonie and her family must escape north on the Hudson. They carry with them a book that holds their records of the lost collections. Racing on the swollen river towards what may be safety, they encounter communities that have adapted in very different and sometimes frightening ways to the new reality. But they are determined to find a way to make a new world that honors all they've saved.

Inspired by the stories of the curators in Iraq and Leningrad who worked to protect their collections from war, All the Water in the World is both a meditation on what we save from collapse and an adventure story—with danger, storms, and a fight for survival. In the spirit of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Parable of the Sower, this wild journey offers the hope that what matters most – love and work, community and knowledge – will survive.

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Discussion Questions

from the publisher:

1. Nonie is saving the world not only by helping to protect the work of all the people of Amen, but also by writing her own book. There are several kinds of writers in the book, including the people at the Cloisters. Discuss the importance of writing and recording in
a post apocalyptic world.

2. The title of the book is a reference to a phrase Nonie says on page 287, “I felt the weight of all the water in the world.” What do you think she is feeling when she feels that weight? How has her understanding of water changed over the course of the book?

3. If you had to choose a place to wait out the collapse of your city or town, would you choose a place like Amen? How would you select the place of safety you use as your refuge? Who would you invite in?

4. Health and medicine are a huge preoccupation of the people in The World As It Is. How can you think of ways to help you and your family and neighbors to thrive in that kind of circumstance? How do we think about protecting those vulnerable people in a world with greater precarity and increased threats?

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