LS 5603 - Genre 4 - AN AMERICAN PLAGUE

Murphy, Jim. 2003. AN AMERICAN PLAGUE: THE TRUE AND TERRIFYING STORY OF THE YELLOW FEVER EPIDEMIC OF 1793. Clarion Books: New York.

ACCURACY
The book is referred to as “meticulously researched”. The author has written over thirty books on American History. The book contains extensive sources broken down by type. There are also acknowledgements, notes about the illustrations and an index. The facts surrounding the events in 1793 are clearly explained. The illustrations and the text are correct.

ORGANIZATION
The text is laid out sequentially by time. There is a clear progression of events that occurred on the various dates. There is a table of contents and captions by the illustrations. There are some specific characters mentioned in the book as well as generalizations.

DESIGN
The illustrations are interesting since they are: newspaper clippings from the time period, drawings from various historical societies or museums, death notices, advertisements, hand written communications and maps of the area. They are very clear and appear with supporting text. The illustrations help to convey the attitude of the time.

STYLE
The author clearly enjoys writing historical accounts. You can tell as you read that the story becomes personal to the characters. The text is written so that you want to continue reading to see what comes next in the story. The last chapter encourages the reader to know the facts since the Yellow Fever never had a true cure.

AWARDS & RECOGNITIONS
Newbery Honor Book
The Robert F. Sibert Medal
National Book Award Finalist
NCTE Orbis Pictus Award
ALA Notable Children’s Book
YALSA Best Book for Young Adults
SLJ Best Book of the Year
Blue Ribbon, Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books
Positive Reviews:
Kirkus Reviews – Editor’s Choice
School Library Journal – Starred review
Alan Review
Children’s Literature
Publisher’s Weekly
The Washington Post
VOYA

CONNECTIONS
This would be an excellent book to compare with other world wide loss of life due to illness. The Black plague of Europe would be a good start for a comparison.