Fever 1973

The book I read a long time ago was called Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson. It's historical fiction and is based on a real epidemic in 1793 of yellow fever. Mattie (who is the main character)'s mom and grandpa own a coffeehouse. They have a maid called Eliza that's not really like a maid because she's Mattie's best friend.
Mattie is 14 years old. One day, she finds out that Polly (who was her friend) died of a fever. Soon 100 people died. Her mother gets the fever and convinces Mattie and her grandpa to evacuate. Suddenly her grandpa gets yellow fever too. Mattie herself gets sick but survives so she is immune to the yellow fever
Now, more than a thousand people have died. Mattie returns to her house. She finds out that lots of things in her house were stolen. This day when she's sleeping, these thieves come and steal her stuff and kill her grandpa. And she still doesn't know where her mother is. . .
Mattie goes to Eliza' house and cares for sick children that almost die. When the frost comes, the fever is gone and they are happy again.

Mattie said that Eliza was "black but she was free and Philadelphia was the best place for free slaves". Mattie, unlike some people, treated Eliza like everyone else and like she was family. She never mentioned that Eliza was black more than once. If you skipped the first part of the book, you would never know that Eliza was black. I think Eliza treats all people equally no matter how they're like.

I think Laurie Halse Anderson wrote this book because she wanted to put a picture into your mind about the yellow fever in 1793 and how it was like. You could imagine streets full of dead people, people bleeding, and the air smelling like something rotten and how hard it was for the people there. Mattie took everything easily, sort of, and it was hard for her to believe (in the beginning) that there was an epidemic until lots of people had died.

I think the author feels that Mattie was really brave and inquisitive and intended for her to be that way. I think she feels that way because she wanted her audience to feel what she felt, and to think that it was a really horrible time to be in.

The author began with Mattie slapping at a mosquito. That makes sense because the yellow fever was spread by mosquitoes.

If I was Mattie, I would be be really scared; family members died, mom missing, etc. Mattie was really brave to overcome all that.