Young Adult Book Review: Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson

By Jennifer Hancock | Central Library 

People are getting sick all around you. Your city has been battling the illness for months, and there is no end in sight. Hospitals are overcrowded and deaths are piling up. There is no cure, and treatments can often cause more harm than help. Businesses are all closed and people are locking themselves inside their homes, hoping that staying away from other people will keep them safe. Evil men have taken advantage of the closed businesses and empty houses to loot and steal. And there is no kindness on the streets anymore, no friendly greetings, just emptiness; and what few people dare to walk those streets are more likely to hurt you than help you. Good Samaritans bring food to those in need, but they rush from house to house because being caught outside could result in injury or death. Does this all sound familiar? 

But I’m not talking about the COVID-19 epidemic of 2020; I’m talking about the yellow fever epidemic of 1793. That makes it easy to understand why many schools are using Laurie Halse Anderson's book Fever 1793 in their literature program this year; most of our children can really relate to Mattie Cook and her struggles.

Mattie is a young teenager whose father has been dead for years due to an accident, so she has been helping her mother and grandfather run a small coffee shop in the capital city of Philadelphia. They also have a cook, a free black woman named Eliza, whom they have hired since neither Mattie nor her mother can cook. This is her family at the start of August, 1793. But then the yellow fever takes hold of Philadelphia and everything changes, so Mattie has to grow up fast. It is up to Mattie to find a way to survive, and to try to help as many as she can in the process with the guidance of Eliza.

In so many ways, this book reflects our world today, right down to the issues of race where free black people are asked to provide humanitarian aid because doctors mistakenly believe they are incapable of getting yellow fever because they are a different “species.” Then those same black people who selflessly helped any and all who needed it are then harassed and accused of “taking advantage of the sick.” But Mattie knows she can trust Eliza, so again we turn to the young to begin healing the rifts in our society.

This was a great read, although I did cry a bit (which I HATE.) The author has an excellent “voice” and kept my interest through it all. The storyline develops very naturally, and it feels very personal because I’ve seen it all happening in our world quite recently. So even though this is a juvie book, it is compelling to adults too, and is an excellent choice for sharing with your kids.