Anderson, Laurie Halse. Fever 1793. New York: Aladdin Paperbacks, 2002.
Summary: 16 year old Matilda "Mattie" Cook lives with her mother and grandfather running a coffehouse in Philadelphia. The epidemic becomes personal when Mattie learns that their servant girl has died of yellow fever. This begins Matilda's journey of coping and survival as the disease decimates the city, turning the place into a ghost town. With her mother missing, Matilda mess grow up quickly and learn to take care of herself and her grandfather who becomes ill. After the death of her grandfather, Mattie faces hunger, robbers, hostile neighbors, and illness. She comes to rely on her former cook, a free African American with whom she has a special relationship. Together they forge ahead to survive the fever.
Tattered Cover says: This book has been carefully researched and gives rich details about the era in which it is set. Each chapter begins with quotes from books or correspondence of the late eighteenth century. I thoroughly enjoyed and learned a lot from this novel. It proves you can learn much about history from a fictional story.
How to use this in a library: Students and teachers can use this book to back up and extend teaching about life after the America Revolution. The details about politics, cities, and the inclusion of famous people (Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, etc.) will allow readers an insider's look at life in the 1790's.
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Publishers Weekly (March 4, 2002)
"PW called this ambitious novel about the yellow fever epidemic that ravaged 18th-century Philadelphia "extremely well researched. However, larger scale views take precedence over the kind of intimate scenes that Anderson crafted so masterfully in Speak." Cahners Business Information.
