April 1, 2025 by Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books
E ARC Provided by Edelweiss Plus
In 1776, thirteen-year-old Elsbeth Culpepper is working as a maid from Judge Bellingham. While she is thrilled when the Siege of Boston ends with the Patriots ousting the British, the judge is a Loyalist who must leave. In dealing with him, Elsbeth has met a young doctor in training, Nyott Doubt, whom the judge asks to look after his house when he must leave. Doubt brings in Mr. Pike, who soon enscounces his large and rowdy family there. Elsbeth had thought that the victory would have made her father, a sailmaker happy, but as smallpox descends on Boston, he flees, and she can't find him. She goes to his boarding house to look for him, and encounters Billy Rowdon, who is ill. Her best friend, Shubel, who has been working for a shoemaker as an apprentice, loses his position, and struggles to find work, even being rejected by the army. Elsbeth is allowed to keep working for Mr. Pike, which is the only way that she has a place to sleep and three meals a day. Pike's family includes Tabitha and five younger boys, as well as a ward, Hannah Sparhawk. When Elsbeth starts to work as Hannah's personal maid, it gives her a bit of a break from the attention of the housekeeper, Widow Nash, who is very demanding. Hannah takes a shine and tries to spend time with Mr. Doubt, but Boston is further thrown into difficulty when smallpox starts spreading. Elsbeth had them when she was young (she lost her mother and three younger siblings to the disease), as did Hannah, so the girls are not vaccinated with the rest of the family. Billy returns and offers information about her father, as well as his possessions, but requires information or clothing from Elsbeth in return. Hannah has some questions about her guardian, Captain Hunter, who seems as corrupt as Billy is. When the familys' innoculations make them mildly sick, it is a lot of work for Elsbeth, who is still trying to find her father. Will Elsbeth be able to help Hannah figure out how to get her inheritance, and find a way to get herself trained so that she can be more than a scullery maid for the rest of her life?
Warning: This book is in no way related to Fever 1793 (2000). It's been so long since I read that one that when I found that Elsbeth had survived a deadly disease, I thought she might have been a character in that earlier book, so was a bit confused.
Strengths: This felt a lot like the works of Ann Rinaldi, Scott O'Dell, Patricia Clapp, or Patricia Beatty in that it is from the point of view of an ordinary girl living through an extraordinary period of history. There are lots of good period details, and Anderson's use of language drew me right into that time period as well. Young readers will be appalled that Elsbeth had to work under such harsh conditions. The information about the inoculations is interesting, and watching the family suffer through the side effects of the primitive vaccine made me feel very grateful that modern flu and COVID shots usually only result in a headache! Hannah's story is heartbreaking, but at least this ends happily for Elsbeth, and we get an afterword about what she does after she leaves the Pikes.
Weaknesses: I had hoped for a little more action and adventure, or more information about the war. There was much more about smallpox than about the war. That's fine, but I kept waiting for Elsbeth and Hannah to take off to Providence alone to show their own "rebellion".
What I really think: Aside from Anderson's other works set during the Revolutionary War era (Forge, Chained, Ashes), most of what I have is so old that I don't have blog posts about it. This includes Hughes' Five Fourths of July, Klass' Soldier's Secret, Calkhoven's Daniel at the Siege of Boston, Paulsen's Woods Runner, and Gregory's The Winter of the Red Snow, and I've even weeded books like Forbes' 1943 Johnny Tremain. There's a definite need for books on this topic, as it is covered in the middle school social studies curriculum. Growing up in the 1970s, it seemed like there were lots of books set during this time, but as we get closer and closer to the Tricentennial, we see fewer and fewer books.
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