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drtlovesbooks 's review for:
The following response was written for the class for which I read this book:
My pair this week consisted of Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson, which was a historical fiction tale based on the real events cataloged in An American Plague by Jim Murphy, a multiple-award-winning nonfiction book.
Both of these books were interesting and engaging, but of all the text I read this week, Fever 1793 ended up being my far-and-away favorite. After finishing reading about the Romanovs, I was leery of another historical fiction piece (and I am generally not a huge historical fiction fan, so Anastasia and her Sisters only deepened my general lack of appreciation). However, after the first chapter or two of Fever 1793, I was fully engaged and on board to see where this story was going. Unlike Meyer’s book, I fully believed that Anderson was telling me a “real” tale, even though I knew it was fiction. As Stephen Greenblatt said in the piece related to us by Dr. A in his second lecture, Anderson had completely sold me on “the illusion of reality,” and she was fully able to “summon up ghosts” and make me feel like I was peering through window to view an actual, lived experience. And she managed to do so within a nicely developed and well-plotted story that conveyed a lot of subtle historical truth. Although there was definitely room for expansion on some elements (I would particularly like to see the story of Eliza the black cook and her experiences in 1790’s Philadelphia), I found this work to be ultimately a successful novel that helps to paint a picture of what life in this place and time might have been like.
As I started to read Jim Murphy’s An American Plague, I found myself constantly going, “Wait, have I read this before?” Anderson had done such a good job of research for Fever 1793 that Murphy’s nonfiction account of the same event felt, in some places, like a re-tread. This further boosted my confidence in my assessment of Fever 1793 as a historical fiction book well worth promoting to others, particularly to history teachers and students. Of course, these two texts would work well as a pair for students to compare. While there is overlap between the two, Fever 1793 is much more intimate in its narrative, while An American Plague provides a solid and engaging overview of the situation, filling in blanks and delving a bit more into some areas that were, of narrative necessity, glossed over by Anderson. It also provides an interesting historical juxtaposition, providing information about another outbreak of yellow fever in New York roughly one hundred years after the sickness debilitated Philadelphia.
Both of these books seem like they would appeal to many YA readers of various stripes, and both could serve as excellent supplemental texts for a history or science class.
My pair this week consisted of Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson, which was a historical fiction tale based on the real events cataloged in An American Plague by Jim Murphy, a multiple-award-winning nonfiction book.
Both of these books were interesting and engaging, but of all the text I read this week, Fever 1793 ended up being my far-and-away favorite. After finishing reading about the Romanovs, I was leery of another historical fiction piece (and I am generally not a huge historical fiction fan, so Anastasia and her Sisters only deepened my general lack of appreciation). However, after the first chapter or two of Fever 1793, I was fully engaged and on board to see where this story was going. Unlike Meyer’s book, I fully believed that Anderson was telling me a “real” tale, even though I knew it was fiction. As Stephen Greenblatt said in the piece related to us by Dr. A in his second lecture, Anderson had completely sold me on “the illusion of reality,” and she was fully able to “summon up ghosts” and make me feel like I was peering through window to view an actual, lived experience. And she managed to do so within a nicely developed and well-plotted story that conveyed a lot of subtle historical truth. Although there was definitely room for expansion on some elements (I would particularly like to see the story of Eliza the black cook and her experiences in 1790’s Philadelphia), I found this work to be ultimately a successful novel that helps to paint a picture of what life in this place and time might have been like.
As I started to read Jim Murphy’s An American Plague, I found myself constantly going, “Wait, have I read this before?” Anderson had done such a good job of research for Fever 1793 that Murphy’s nonfiction account of the same event felt, in some places, like a re-tread. This further boosted my confidence in my assessment of Fever 1793 as a historical fiction book well worth promoting to others, particularly to history teachers and students. Of course, these two texts would work well as a pair for students to compare. While there is overlap between the two, Fever 1793 is much more intimate in its narrative, while An American Plague provides a solid and engaging overview of the situation, filling in blanks and delving a bit more into some areas that were, of narrative necessity, glossed over by Anderson. It also provides an interesting historical juxtaposition, providing information about another outbreak of yellow fever in New York roughly one hundred years after the sickness debilitated Philadelphia.
Both of these books seem like they would appeal to many YA readers of various stripes, and both could serve as excellent supplemental texts for a history or science class.