The Great Trouble: A Mystery of London, the Blue Death, and a Boy Named Eel by Deborah Hopkinson
I wasn't sure if I was going to like the book as I started to read the first few pages. But the book starts to draw you in with unforgettable characters such as Eel, Florrie, Thumbless Jake, Fisheye Bill Tyler and others. The reader begins to care what happens to Eel and the others in his community that are coming down with cholera and dying in great numbers. It's a great piece of historical writing about the cholera that was once known as the Blue Death and how Dr. John Snow found out the source which was causing the spread of the outbreak. At the end of the book are some great author's notes on the real-life characters portrayed in the book and about the deadly cholera disease. Highly recommend for 5th grade and up.
Labels: 2017 Caudill nominee, Historical Fiction