The Probability of Everything
By Sarah Everett
Clarion Books, HarperCollins
“Seamlessly moving between the poetic and the grounded, Everett weaves a heartwarming and heartbreaking tale that lingers. By the time readers reach the emotional climax of this surprising, powerful and beautifully written novel, they’ll be inclined to return to the beginning and read it again from the perspective of someone who knows what’s coming.”
—Peer assessment committee: Cheryl Foggo, June Hur and Tom Ryan
Synopsis
Eleven-year-old Kemi Carter loves scientific facts, specifically probability. It’s how she understands the world and her place in it. Kemi knows that her odds of being born were 1 in 5.5 trillion and that the odds of her having the best family ever were even lower. Yet somehow, Kemi lucked out.
But everything Kemi thought she knew changes when she sees an asteroid hover in the sky, casting a purple haze over her world. Amplus-68 has an 84.7% chance of colliding with earth in four days, and with that collision, Kemi’s life as she knows it will end.
But over the course of the four days, even facts don’t feel true to Kemi anymore. The new town she moved to that was supposed to be “better for her family” isn’t very welcoming. And Amplus-68 is taking over her life, but others are still going to school and eating at their favorite diner like nothing has changed. Is Kemi the only one who feels like the world is ending?
With the days numbered, Kemi decides to put together a time capsule that will capture her family’s truth: how creative her mother is, how inquisitive her little sister can be, and how much Kemi’s whole world revolves around her father. But no time capsule can change the truth behind all of it, that Kemi must face the most inevitable and hardest part of life: saying goodbye.
Biography
Sarah Everett is the author of several books for young readers, including How to Live Without You, Some Other Now and the forthcoming The Shape of Lost Things. She has been writing stories since childhood, and her work has been published in 11 languages. When she is not reading or writing, she is dreaming about summer, perfecting her tree pose or gearing up for her next travel adventure. She lives in the Canadian prairies.
Photo: Cassandra Williams.
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