Purple Death: The Mysterious Flue of 1918 - Hardcover

Getz, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 080505751X ISBN 13: 9780805057515

Publisher: Henry Holt Books for Young Readers, 2000

Synopsis

Provides the true story of the mysterious flu that killed nearly a half a million people in America during the last year of World War I, complete with period photographs and illustrations.

About this title

Review

-Combining cogent accounts both of a worldwide tragedy and some classic medical detective work, this is certain to please and to sober a wide audience.- --Kirkus Reviews

-Illustrated with riveting black-and-white photographs as well as haunting pencil sketches, this short and easily accessible book traces the desperate search for the cause of and cure for the flu. Especially intriguing are the descriptions of efforts to obtain 'live' samples of the virus.- --VOYA

-Soft, charcoal-pencil drawings capture the somber mood. . . . The painstaking and heroic deeds scientists must take on in order to identify a disease and develop a cure will be interesting to budding scientists.- --School Library Journal

-With the same mysterious, intriguing style of his previous books about frozen mummies, the author tells a gripping story of the influenza pandemic of 1918 that infected two billion people.- --Children's Literature

-[Getz] writes clearly and dramatically, whether he's describing how vaccines work, how pneumonia was treated before the discovery of antibiotics, or what today's researchers are doing to find the flu virus preserved in the lungs of frozen bodies. . . . And always there's the question, What if there's a pandemic today?- --Booklist

"Combining cogent accounts both of a worldwide tragedy and some classic medical detective work, this is certain to please and to sober a wide audience." --Kirkus Reviews

"Illustrated with riveting black-and-white photographs as well as haunting pencil sketches, this short and easily accessible book traces the desperate search for the cause of and cure for the flu. Especially intriguing are the descriptions of efforts to obtain 'live' samples of the virus." --VOYA

"Soft, charcoal-pencil drawings capture the somber mood. . . . The painstaking and heroic deeds scientists must take on in order to identify a disease and develop a cure will be interesting to budding scientists." --School Library Journal

"With the same mysterious, intriguing style of his previous books about frozen mummies, the author tells a gripping story of the influenza pandemic of 1918 that infected two billion people." --Children's Literature

"[Getz] writes clearly and dramatically, whether he's describing how vaccines work, how pneumonia was treated before the discovery of antibiotics, or what today's researchers are doing to find the flu virus preserved in the lungs of frozen bodies. . . . And always there's the question, What if there's a pandemic today?" --Booklist

About the Author

David Getz is the award-winning author of the middle-grade novels Thin Air and Almost Famous, and the nonfiction books Life on Mars, Frozen Man and Frozen Girl. When not writing, Mr. Getz works as an elementary-school principal in New York City.

Peter McCarty is the Caldecott Honor-winning author and illustrator of Hondo and Fabian. He also teamed up with David Getz on Frozen Man, Frozen Girl, and Life on Mars. Mr. McCarty lives with his wife and two children in Upstate New York.

Edition details

• Publisher: Henry Holt Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 080505751X
• ISBN 13: 9780805057515
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 86
• Illustrator: McCarty Peter