Horrors of History
Well-researched and rich with ghastly details, this third historical fiction novel in the Horrors of History series brings young readers into the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918.
World War I is almost over. Thrilled that the Liberty Parade has won them a day off of school, Harriet and Harry run up and down Broad Street–where a boatload of Navy sailors from Boston have just brought the influenza to Philadelphia. Over the next two months, fully a quarter of the city will be stricken with the flu. Thousands will die. And the City of Brotherly Love will never be the same.
Actual and fictionalized victims and survivors, like heroic young Barium Epp and Philadelphia Department of Public Health and Charities director Dr. Wilmer Krusen, help weave together a gripping account of the flu that rocked the nation and the city that fought back in the early days of epidemiology and public health.Prologue
Chapter One: Coughs and Sneezes Spread Diseases
Chapter Two: Spitting Equals Death
Chapter Three: Spasms
Chapter Four: Plague
Chapter Five: "Do You See Angels?"
Chapter Six: To the Dead House
Chapter Seven: Deeply Cyanotic
Chapter Eight: Vermin
Chapter Nine: An Uncanny Population
Chapter Ten: Under the Dogwood Tree
Epilogue
Author’s NoteAnderson tells the tale of Harriet, Harry, and Barium, who live in South Philadelphia during the Spanish influenza pandemic that swept the globe in 1918. The crowded and often filthy tenement houses of urban neighborhoods and emergency hospitals that sprung up around Philadelphia during the height of the epidemic provide the backdrop as the protagonists come to terms with the loss of their parents to the virus. Many of the characters are fictionalized composites of real-life survivors, whereas others, such as Philadelphia physician Wilmer Krusen and mayor Thomas Smith, are real-life portrayals. Charts and maps of historical data share space with the fictional dialogue and plot twists, and period black-and-white photographs of the sick and dying, masked stretcher-bearers, and exhausted gravediggers punctuate the fast-paced narrative, providing an unflinching look at the horrors of the seemingly unstoppable virus. This typifies the historical novel that walks the fine line between fact and fiction.
-BooklistT. Neill Anderson is a research fanatic and American-history buff. He is the author of City of the Dead and Ocean of Fire, the first two books in the Horrors of History series. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.The epidemic had spun out of control. The bodies in the little room he’d just left were the lucky ones. The halls he now moved through were thick with the putrid stench of death and lined with bodies that hadn’t even been afforded the dignity of a sheet. Some were ice cold, had given up the ghost days before. Others were merely lukewarm, their lives only recently extinguished. Every single body was the color of a violent bruise—a ghoulish blue-black hue. Alive, these Philadelphians were white, black, or brown—now they were all united. One single race of the dead.
World War I is almost over. Thrilled that the Liberty Parade has won them a day off of school, Harriet and Harry run up and down Broad Street–where a boatload of Navy sailors from Boston have just brought the influenza to Philadelphia. Over the next two months, fully a quarter of the city will be stricken with the flu. Thousands will die. And the City of Brotherly Love will never be the same.
Actual and fictionalized victims and survivors, like heroic young Barium Epp and Philadelphia Department of Public Health and Charities director Dr. Wilmer Krusen, help weave together a gripping account of the flu that rocked the nation and the city that fought back in the early days of epidemiology and public health.Prologue
Chapter One: Coughs and Sneezes Spread Diseases
Chapter Two: Spitting Equals Death
Chapter Three: Spasms
Chapter Four: Plague
Chapter Five: "Do You See Angels?"
Chapter Six: To the Dead House
Chapter Seven: Deeply Cyanotic
Chapter Eight: Vermin
Chapter Nine: An Uncanny Population
Chapter Ten: Under the Dogwood Tree
Epilogue
Author’s NoteAnderson tells the tale of Harriet, Harry, and Barium, who live in South Philadelphia during the Spanish influenza pandemic that swept the globe in 1918. The crowded and often filthy tenement houses of urban neighborhoods and emergency hospitals that sprung up around Philadelphia during the height of the epidemic provide the backdrop as the protagonists come to terms with the loss of their parents to the virus. Many of the characters are fictionalized composites of real-life survivors, whereas others, such as Philadelphia physician Wilmer Krusen and mayor Thomas Smith, are real-life portrayals. Charts and maps of historical data share space with the fictional dialogue and plot twists, and period black-and-white photographs of the sick and dying, masked stretcher-bearers, and exhausted gravediggers punctuate the fast-paced narrative, providing an unflinching look at the horrors of the seemingly unstoppable virus. This typifies the historical novel that walks the fine line between fact and fiction.
-BooklistT. Neill Anderson is a research fanatic and American-history buff. He is the author of City of the Dead and Ocean of Fire, the first two books in the Horrors of History series. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.The epidemic had spun out of control. The bodies in the little room he’d just left were the lucky ones. The halls he now moved through were thick with the putrid stench of death and lined with bodies that hadn’t even been afforded the dignity of a sheet. Some were ice cold, had given up the ghost days before. Others were merely lukewarm, their lives only recently extinguished. Every single body was the color of a violent bruise—a ghoulish blue-black hue. Alive, these Philadelphians were white, black, or brown—now they were all united. One single race of the dead.
PUBLISHER:
Charlesbridge
ISBN-10:
1580895182
ISBN-13:
9781580895187
BINDING:
Hardback
BOOK DIMENSIONS:
Dimensions: 6.3800(W) x Dimensions: 9.2500(H) x Dimensions: 0.7500(D)