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
