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| A newspaper article from 1907 about Mary Mallon |
Deadly, by Julie Chibbaro, is about a 16-year-old girl named Prudence Galewski who goes to Mrs. Browning's School for girls, which seems to be a finishing school. She lives with her mother - who she calls Marm - after her father has gone to war and her brother, Benny, has been killed by infection. She gets a job as a scientific assistant for Mr. Soper who works for the Department of Health and Sanitation. The hours are so that she has to quit school. In her new job they are researching the cause of Typhoid Fever and find a lead having to do with peach ice cream and find and confront Mary Mallon - "Typhoid Mary" - who is healthy but spreads the fever through her cooking. They try to capture her using all kinds of methods including following, threatening and even bribing, but fail to capture her until they get the police involved.Even after they capture her, she still refuses to believe them. Meanwhile, Prudence is having troubles with Mr. Soper because she loves him and after she kissed him he isn't being as friendly anymore. There is also a young science fellow named Jonathan who loves her but she is afraid and angry with him because he tried to kiss her and he was acting aggressively. There is a female doctor, Dr. Baker, who helps Prudence and Mr. Soper with Mary and who thinks that Prudence should go to medical school. While all that is happening, the press is getting worked up about Mary's involuntary quarantine. The book's climax is the court hearing where they decide whether or not Mary should stay in quarantine. Although there are lots of protesters, the judge says the Department of Health and Sanitation is free to leave Mary quarantine on North Brother Island.
I think that the theme is to be confident and to do something meaningful, even if you are a girl. One of my examples is when Prudence is meeting with Dr. Baker and she says that she didn't know there were schools for girls like her. "There certainly are schools for girls like you, Prudence! I wish more girls knew that! The only way for us to progress is by getting out of the factories and going to school" (168). Another example is where Prudence tells Dr. Baker that her mother didn't want her to go to free school. "She thought Mrs. Browning's would give me a better chance in life than she had" (198). My third example is when Prudence tells her mom that she wants to go to medical school. "You make me so proud" (220). This means so much to Prudence that she starts crying. I think that this is a good theme because at that time not many women were in the professions. I think that girls should get up and show how good they are. Doing something meaningful with your life is an important theme in this book.
I would definitely recommend this book to a friend or other 7th graders because it has a strong plot and characters who are very relatable. It is a good book if you like science, history, or even romance novels! This author, Julie Chibbaro, has written one other book, Redemption, and it is also historical fiction.Her writing is very good and it makes you care about stereotypes and prejudice. I love this book, and I would recommend it to others.
Picture from: http://yaoutsidethelines.blogspot.com/2010/12/stranger-than-fiction.html
