56 pages • 1 hour read
Max BrallierThe Last Kids on Earth
Fiction | Graphic Novel/Book | Middle Grade | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Summary
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
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BetaSymbols & Motifs
Junk Food
Perhaps a commentary on the diets of teenagers, or perhaps a reflection of how our world is held together by an undying conglomerate of corporations who supply us with unhealthy beverages and tempting cheese puffs—even during the apocalypse—the constant appearance of junk food is a motif that begins to make this post-zombie world feel more regular, more comfortable, more believable for a group of young teenagers. The casual appearance of a “Pringles can” (40) during a monster battle, or the excited mention of “Mountain Dew” (73) between friends, reassures readers that despite a crumbling infrastructure and devastated human population, teens will be teens. In some ways it is the fuel that keeps them going, and in some cases, it is what inspires them to fight for their lives. In one of the more comical moments of junk food, Jack uses “Little Hug Monster-Stopping Juice Grenades” (212) to attack at Blarg. What are they, exactly? “Little Hugs—they’re the best. If you’ve never had ‘em, get ‘em. They’re sweet and delicious and taste like sugary chemicals—and when they’re empty, they make for perfect monster-stopping juice grenades” (211). So, Little Hugs are the artificially-flavored beverages many children grew up drinking, and now they’ve been turned into acid bombs in the apocalypse.
Video Games and Fun Times
At one point in the story, June asks Jack, “are you actually having fun during the end of the world?” (164). For Jack (and to a degree, for Quint, Dirk, and June as well), there is fun to be had in the apocalypse. Launching tennis balls at the brainless heads of zombies becomes a new game with score keeping. Driving around Wakefield in a massively armored truck and smashing trash cans is now a fun activity. Also, “gripping [weapons] like an Xbox controller” (189) is a part of regular life. Jack admits multiple times that he is treating the apocalypse like a video game and wants to rack up points for his challenges. Again, this motif reinforces the idea that this adventure is dictated by the lifestyles and desires of a group of teenagers—mostly boys—living in a world without parental supervision. Their sense of gaming undermines the reality of their situation, but it also adds to the lighthearted nature of the story and the character’s ability to be joyful.
Home and Family
The concept of a home emerges multiple times at different points in the story and symbolizes a place of belonging for Jack. He has never experienced the level of homeliness that he can call his own, and it is one of his most sought after feelings in this book. It becomes clear in his adventure that he feels like he’s an outcast in society, and whenever he sees a sign of normal family life—and a sense of home—he either gets saddened or inspired to create that for himself. A moment that exemplifies his desire for home is when he is searching in an abandoned vehicle for gas and sees a faded photo of a family on the dashboard. He observes:
They look like the happiest family on earth […] I can’t help but think how they at least got to be a family. With a dog, even. At least they got to have a house—a real house, not some random place you just get shipped to every year. A home. They had what I’ve always wanted (85).
Despite the carefree and informal tone of Jack in the book, he also has deeper moments of humanity and introspection when he must grapple with his inner conflict and desires. In Jack’s case, it’s the desire to have a family, to have a home he can return to, to have a dog, and to have friends. And by the end of the story, in risking his own life, he finally gets to experience all of those with his own home (treehouse) and family (friends).
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