People of the Plague

Well-researched and rich with ghastly details, this third historical fiction novel in the Horrors of History series brings young readers into the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918. World War I is almost over. Thrilled that the Liberty Parade has won them a day off of school, Harriet and Harry run up and down Broad Street–where a boatload of Navy sailors from Boston have just brought the influenza to Philadelphia.

Over the next two months, fully a quarter of the city will be stricken with the flu. Thousands will die. And the City of Brotherly Love will never be the same.

Actual and fictionalized victims and survivors, like heroic young Barium Epp and Philadelphia Department of Public Health and Charities director Dr. Wilmer Krusen, help weave together a gripping account of the flu that rocked the nation and the city that fought back in the early days of epidemiology and public health.