Fever
by Laurie Halse Anderson

Aladdin Paperbacks, 2000, 243 pp., $6.99
ISBN: 0-689-84891-9

Fever by Laurie Halse Anderson is a story about a young girl who survives the harshness of epidemic and loneliness. Mattie’s family is not the wealthiest but not the poorest of families and when news of the plague spreads, their small family owned coffee house gets a lot less business then it is used to. Matters become worse when her family falls upon hard times and Mattie is forced to survive alone in her fever ridden town. Mattie has an interesting perspective on things and sees some of the saddest things on her journey to survival 

 Anderson vividly explains Mattie’s tough decisions and actions, as well as showing her emotions throughout this humbling adventure. She pulls you into the sadness and death as the epidemic rages and destroys what used to be her home. She does it in such a way that it makes you feel like you are right there with her, watching her observe her mother getting an incision and losing 10 ounces of blood each day, watching her grandfather get shot and killed, and see the disgusting yellow gleaming at you in the ill peoples eyes with hatred.

This book makes people feel like they can do anything if they set their minds to it. The way Laurie Halse Anderson explains Mattie’s journey to finding herself and recognizing how se has rebuilt her entire families life in a death-ridden town in a short amount of time!

If you like books that will make you laugh and cry in 250 pages, that show the true harshness of epidemics, that teach you boring things interesting ways this book is for you.

~ reviewed by Sail