Fever 1793 (Seeds of America Trilogy)
On the heels of her acclaimed contemporary teen novelSpeak, Laurie Halse Anderson  surprises her fans with a riveting and well-researched historical fiction.Fever 1793is based on an actual epidemic of yellow fever in Philadelphia  that wiped out 5,000 people--or 10 percent of the city's population--in three  months. At the close of the 18th century, Philadelphia was the bustling capital  of the United States, with Washington and Jefferson in residence. During the hot  mosquito-infested summer of 1793, the dreaded yellow fever spread like wildfire,  killing people overnight. Like specters from the Middle Ages, gravediggers drew  carts through the streets crying "Bring out your dead!" The rich fled to the  country, abandoning the city to looters, forsaken corpses, and frightened  survivors.In the foreground of this story is 16-year-old Mattie Cook, whose mother and  grandfather own a popular coffee house on High Street. Mattie's comfortable and  interesting life is shattered by the epidemic, as her mother is felled and the  girl and her grandfather must flee for their lives. Later, after much hardship  and terror, they return to the deserted town to find their former cook, a freed  slave, working with the African Free Society, an actual group who undertook to  visit and assist the sick and saved many lives. As first frost arrives and the  epidemic ends, Mattie's sufferings have changed her from a willful child to a  strong, capable young woman able to manage her family's business on her own.  (Ages 12 and older)--Patty Campbell