Secretly harboring a passion for science while being forced to attend a snooty finishing school in 1900 San Francisco, Lizzie helps her doctor father make house calls and wonders if the bubonic plague has actually come to the city. Simultaneous eBook. - (Baker & Taylor)
Thirteen-year-old Lizzie and her secret friend Noah, who is hiding in her house, plan to rescue Noah's father from the quarantined Chinatown, and save everyone they love from contracting the plague that is spreading in 1900 San Francisco. - (Baker & Taylor)
Newbery Honor–winning author Gennifer Choldenko deftly combines humor, tragedy, fascinating historical detail, and a medical mystery in this exuberant new novel.
San Francisco, 1900. The Gilded Age. A fantastic time to be alive for lots of people . . . but not thirteen-year-old Lizzie Kennedy, stuck at Miss Barstow’s snobby school for girls. Lizzie’s secret passion is science, an unsuitable subject for finishing-school girls. Lizzie lives to go on house calls with her physician father. On those visits to his patients, she discovers a hidden dark side of the city—a side that’s full of secrets, rats, and rumors of the plague.
The newspapers, her powerful uncle, and her beloved papa all deny that the plague has reached San Francisco. So why is the heart of the city under quarantine? Why are angry mobs trying to burn Chinatown to the ground? Why is Noah, the Chinese cook’s son, suddenly making Lizzie question everything she has known to be true? Ignoring the rules of race and class, Lizzie and Noah must put the pieces together in a heart-stopping race to save the people they love.
Winner of a Los Angeles Public Library FOCAL (Friends of Children and Literature) Award
Nominated for:
Pennsylvania Young Reader’s Choice Awards
Tennessee Volunteer State Book Award (Middle School division)
Missouri Association of School Librarians (MASL) Readers Award
California Library Association’s Beatty Award, Eureka List - (Random House, Inc.)
Gennifer Choldenko is the New York Times bestselling and Newbery Honor–winning author of many popular children’s books, including Notes from a Liar and Her Dog, If a Tree Falls at Lunch Period, Al Capone Does My Shirts, Al Capone Shines My Shoes, Al Capone Does My Homework, and No Passengers Beyond This Point. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she hopes never to see a rat. Dead or otherwise. Visit her online at choldenko.com. - (Random House, Inc.)
Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Dead rats, hushed rumors of plague, and cryptic talk of a monkey are at the forefront of 13-year-old Lizzie's mind as she schemes to rescue the family cook, Jing, from quarantine in San Francisco's Chinatown during the year 1900. In her newest novel, Newbery Honor Book author Choldenko (Al Capone Does My Shirts, 2004) delves into the controversial circumstances surrounding this outbreak of bubonic plague, as well as the more pedestrian challenges of growing up as a girl in early twentieth-century America. Bright and tenacious Lizzie has ambitions to become a doctor like her father, but such dreams give her little in common with other girls her age and also put her at odds with Aunt Hortense, who is determined to make a lady of her. The plot is enriched by winning characters, meaningful friendships, a taut atmosphere, and secrets multiplying as fast as the story's rats. Readers will sympathize as Lizzie fights for Jing and confronts challenges brought by adolescence, gender inequality, and racial prejudice. An author's note and chronology provide additional historical information. This engrossing mystery perfectly balances heart and intrigue, proving once again Choldenko's talent for packaging history within a story that kids are bound to love. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.
Publishers Weekly Reviews
"Aunt Hortense says I try hard to be peculiar. But she's wrong; I come by it quite naturally," says Lizzie Kennedy, 13, who reluctantly attends a fussy finishing school in turn-of-the-20th-century San Francisco when she'd rather be making house calls with her father, a kindly doctor. (She and Jacqueline Kelly's Calpurnia Tate could've been BFFs if they had lived nearby.) When Lizzie overhears talk about a bubonic plague outbreak, her father and her uncle, a wealthy newspaper publisher, dismiss it as rumor. Within days, however, Chinatown is quarantined, trapping the Kennedys' beloved cook, Jing, and marooning his son, Noah, who he had secretly hidden in the Kennedy's servants' quarters. Ignoring the social mores that would prohibit Lizzie from befriending a boy her age, a servant's child, or a Chinese person, she finds Noah much better company than her snooty classmates. A powerful subplot involving Lizzie's older brother, Billy, shows that the controversy over immunization has long roots. Choldenko, who won a Newbery Honor for Al Capone Does My Shirts, delivers another engaging historical novel about a little-known event. Ages 9–12. Agent: Elizabeth Harding, Curtis Brown.(Aug.)
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School Library Journal Reviews
Gr 5–8—Thirteen-year-old Lizzie is the daughter of Dr. Jules Kennedy, who practices medicine in turn of the 20th century San Francisco. The family resides in a house on Uncle Karl and Aunt Hortense's Nob Hill estate. There's Lizzie and her brother, Billy; Jing, the cook; Maggy, the maid; and—unbeknownst to all but Lizzie—Jing's son, Noah. Since Lizzie's mother died, Aunt Hortense has assumed a maternal role in Lizzie's upbringing, which includes making her attend Miss Barstow's School for Young Women. Unfortunately, the school offers little to nurture Lizzie's interest in science and medicine. While accompanying her father on house calls, Lizzie soon hears rumors of a plague. Then Jing goes missing. She suspects he might be under quarantine in Chinatown. But why is Chinatown the only area of the city under quarantine? And why aren't any medical staff or supplies being sent to the Chinatown residents? Despite the evidence, city officials and the medical community—including Lizzie's father—are denying the plague's existence. As the title suggests, various characters, along with the state and city government, harbor secrets. An author's note, time line, and bibliography document the historical facts and issues of the period. VERDICT Choldenko's latest novel features a fast-paced plot that will appeal to lovers of both mystery and historical fiction. A first purchase.—Sharon M. Lawler, formerly of Randolph Elementary, Universal City, TX
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Voice of Youth Advocates Reviews
Lizzie is a teenage girl in San Francisco in 1900. Unlike the other girls at her fancy prep school, she does not like dressing up, dancing, and chatting with the other girls. She does like riding her horse, Juliet; her family's Chinese servant, Jing; and assisting her father in his work as a doctor. When Jing gets trapped in the Chinatown quarantine during rampant rumors about the plague's presence in their city, Lizzie misses her friend. When she realizes that he is hiding his son at her house, Lizzie becomes frantic to get Jing out of quarantine. Complicating matters is her father's absence and belief that there is no plague, as well as Uncle Karl, a big-time newspaper man, barely helping her because of his denial of the plague's presence. This very readable historical fiction will appeal to readers who enjoy books like Laurie Halse Anderson's Chains (Simon & Schuster, 2008/VOYA October 2008). It covers an incident in history that is seldom studied; the medical aspects, as well as the politics in the story, will make it interesting to a wide variety of readers. The author's note and chronology at the end provide the reader with clear information and research on the topic, giving readers the opportunity to take an active interest in the factual parts of the story.—Elisabeth W. Rauch 5Q 4P M Copyright 2011 Voya Reviews.