Synopses & Reviews
The epidemic had spun out of control. The bodies in the little room hed 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 hadnt 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.
Synopsis
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.
Table of Contents
Well-researched and rich with ghastly details, this third historical fiction novel in the Horrors of History series is based on the great influenza epidemic of 1918. Actual and fictionalized victims and survivors, like the young, heroic Barium and the concerned, wise Doctor Wilmer Krusen, help weave together a gripping account of how Philadelphia coped with the outbreak.