Summary of Judy Blume's In the Unlikely Event is a fictional account of a real series of plane crashes that took place between December 1951 and August 1952 in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
Miri Ammerman is a young Jewish girl. Her mother, Rusty, made the unusual choice, for the time period, to raise her daughter alone. They live with Rusty’s mother, Irene, and brother, Henry, a reporter for the local paper. Miri’s best friend, Natalie, is the daughter of a local dentist, Dr. Osner. Miri often fantasizes about Natalie’s mother dying so that Rusty and Dr. Osner can get married. Then the girls could be sisters.
A young dancer named Ruby Granik boards a plane and, while helping a young mother with her two small children as the plane takes off, Ruby realizes that something is terribly wrong. At the same time, Miri and Rusty are on their way home from a movie when they see the plane coming down…
