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Fever Year: The Killer Flu of 1918: A Graphic Novel
From the Sibert Honor–winning creator behind The Unwanted and Drowned City comes one of the darkest episodes in American the Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918. This nonfiction graphic novel explores the causes, effects, and lessons learned from a major epidemic in our past, and is the perfect tool for engaging readers of all ages, especially teens and tweens learning from home.
New Year’s Day, 1918. America has declared war on Germany and is gathering troops to fight. But there’s something coming that is deadlier than any war.
When people begin to fall ill, most Americans don’t suspect influenza. The flu is known to be dangerous to the very old, young, or frail. But the Spanish flu is exceptionally violent. Soon, thousands of people succumb. Then tens of thousands . . . hundreds of thousands and more. Graves can’t be dug quickly enough.
What made the influenza of 1918 so exceptionally deadly—and what can modern science help us understand about this tragic episode in history? With a journalist’s discerning eye for facts and an artist’s instinct for true emotion, Sibert Honor recipient Don Brown sets out to answer these questions and more in Fever Year .
New Year’s Day, 1918. America has declared war on Germany and is gathering troops to fight. But there’s something coming that is deadlier than any war.
When people begin to fall ill, most Americans don’t suspect influenza. The flu is known to be dangerous to the very old, young, or frail. But the Spanish flu is exceptionally violent. Soon, thousands of people succumb. Then tens of thousands . . . hundreds of thousands and more. Graves can’t be dug quickly enough.
What made the influenza of 1918 so exceptionally deadly—and what can modern science help us understand about this tragic episode in history? With a journalist’s discerning eye for facts and an artist’s instinct for true emotion, Sibert Honor recipient Don Brown sets out to answer these questions and more in Fever Year .
96 pages, Hardcover
First published September 3, 2019
30 people are currently reading
790 people want to read
About the author
Don Brown
48 books148 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Don Brown is the award-winning author and illustrator of many picture book biographies. He has been widely praised for his resonant storytelling and his delicate watercolor paintings that evoke the excitement, humor, pain, and joy of lives lived with passion. School Library Journal has called him "a current pacesetter who has put the finishing touches on the standards for storyographies." He lives in New York with his family.
Don Brown is the award-winning author and illustrator of many picture book biographies. He has been widely praised for his resonant storytelling and his delicate watercolor paintings that evoke the excitement, humor, pain, and joy of lives lived with passion. School Library Journal has called him "a current pacesetter who has put the finishing touches on the standards for storyographies." He lives in New York with his family.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 312 reviews
September 2, 2020
It's unfortunate how timely this is with its recounting of a pandemic that included contagion ships, mask controversies, snake oil cures, politicians prematurely declaring an end to the spread, overworked nurses, and rushed vaccines.
Informative if a little flat due to almost all the text being delivered in typeset caption boxes and an (appropriately) subdued color scheme.
Unrelated to my rating, this was not a good Kindle experience with the book presented in two-page spread format so it appears tiny. The panel magnification scroll didn't even double the size of the panels, leaving them small little stamps floating in a big unused screen. I couldn't even zoom in on the page like I usually can in Kindle.
Informative if a little flat due to almost all the text being delivered in typeset caption boxes and an (appropriately) subdued color scheme.
Unrelated to my rating, this was not a good Kindle experience with the book presented in two-page spread format so it appears tiny. The panel magnification scroll didn't even double the size of the panels, leaving them small little stamps floating in a big unused screen. I couldn't even zoom in on the page like I usually can in Kindle.
September 11, 2019
Other than one tiny mention of a Black nurse, this shows the flu only affecting white people. All other BIPOC are for the most part completely erased.
May 24, 2020
Many thanks to HMH for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review
You know... now that I think about it... now might not have been the best time to read this nook consider the fact that the Coronavirus is currently freaking everyone (including me) out.
Oh well! It's too late now. This graphic novel covers the history of the Flu outbreak of 1918. I've actually read about this topic many times before but one book stands out to me specifically...
I don't remember which one it was but I just remember that it terrified me. Like TERRIFIED. I had a panic attack after reading it and it took a long time for the general anxiety to go away.
Anywho, this book basically the same as that book but with graphics. Fortunately, I am much more mentally stable than I was when I was eight.
Overall, this book was decent. I really enjoyed the illustration and I think I would have enjoyed them, even more, had they been in color (I had an ARC and it was black and white). Almost every part of this book was easily understandable for elementary/middle schoolers. There was one part that was quite... advanced but other than that it was all pretty easy!
Happy reading!
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October 31, 2020
I have this year read a few books on Ebola/Pandemics/Influenza/The Plague just for fun (!) (kidding) and fairly recently, John Barry's The Great Influenza, about the flu of 1918, that took place in the world just about a hundred years ago, that killed about 650,000 peopkle here in the US but millions worldwide even as WWI was going on. Woodrow Wilson had it and denied it, wanting as with many politicians to put a positive spin somehow on the pandemic so people could get behind his war effort. It's just a cold, nothing to see here!!
Much murderous denial as tens of thousands of soldiers died here from the flu as their brothers died in Europe. FDR had it and recovered, many people had it and recovered, many more died and paralyzed the country and the economy for a time, but there were almost no works written about it. There are thousands of works about WWI but comparatively little about the year of the Flu. Why is that??!
This is my favorite Brown book that I have read so far, a book for young people or people who want a quick look at the history without having to read hundreds of pages about it? Brown's book is well drawn and well researched and creates a good pretty quick narrative of the main events. If you like it, and get interested in delving deeper, Brown has an appendix, at the top of which is Barry's book which I reviewed and recommend. Trust me, we need to understand the history around these pandemics, as the one we are going through aint over and will not be the last one. You want horror on Halloween? Imagine millions dead from a pandemic.
Much murderous denial as tens of thousands of soldiers died here from the flu as their brothers died in Europe. FDR had it and recovered, many people had it and recovered, many more died and paralyzed the country and the economy for a time, but there were almost no works written about it. There are thousands of works about WWI but comparatively little about the year of the Flu. Why is that??!
This is my favorite Brown book that I have read so far, a book for young people or people who want a quick look at the history without having to read hundreds of pages about it? Brown's book is well drawn and well researched and creates a good pretty quick narrative of the main events. If you like it, and get interested in delving deeper, Brown has an appendix, at the top of which is Barry's book which I reviewed and recommend. Trust me, we need to understand the history around these pandemics, as the one we are going through aint over and will not be the last one. You want horror on Halloween? Imagine millions dead from a pandemic.
September 23, 2019
I sort of feel like....I'm not totally sure who Don Brown's books are for? Like this one...I guess it's a good intro to the topic of the flu but it's not like, an engaging narrative? It's less dry than a textbook but it's not exactly a story? The art is expressive but not gorgeous? Perhaps best used in a classroom setting? IDK I feel like I have read a few of his books and I'm always just left kind of wanting more...
November 17, 2021
As 1918 began, the United States was at war with German but soon “a third of the planet” and millions would be dead of the flu.”
In March 1918, an army cook reported sick at Camp Funston, Kansas. Within a month, 48 were dead and 1,000 ill. Dr. Loring Miner of Haskell County had already treated patients for what he believed was severe influenza. The sickness spread to other army camps, 1,000 Ford Motor Company workers in Detroit, 500 inmates in San Quentin Prison, California, an American military camp in Bordeaux, France, and through the British, French, and German soldiers. When it spread to Spain, which had no censorship, it became known as the Spanish flu. Ships laden with sick sailors arrived in Sierra Leone, who infected African laborers, resulting in the deaths of 1,000 Africans.
On August 27, three sailors in Boston became ill causing others to quickly sicken. In a nearby army base, after one man reported ill, 8,000 patients overburdened the hospitals with 66 men dying in 24 hours. By the end of September 757 soldiers had died, and there were no more coffins. The Massachusetts Health officials in Boston claimed the cases were diminishing when within weeks hundreds sickened and 334 died. A month later, 3,000 people had died in Boston and the surrounding area. After sailors were moved from Boston to Philadelphia, 600 fell ill within 36 hours and 1500 sickened at Camp Dix.
At the start of October, 4,000 were sick in Philadelphia with 570 dying in four days. Businesses and services ceased. There were not enough doctors and nurses as they were away serving in the war. 11,000 died in October. Morticians and funeral parlors were overwhelmed. 13,462 died from influenza or the subsequent pneumonia the last four months of 1918 in Philadelphia.
Dust was initially blamed for spreading the disease. People were told not to kiss, spit, or trade “handkerchiefs, pipes, or towels.” Desperate means were used to fight the illness such as onions, mustard, and goose grease poultices. As the disease spread to the West coast, San Francisco and Oakland passed ordinances mandating face masks. Masked cops arrested “mask slackers.” While many gatherings were banned, fund-raising rallies and Liberty Loan drives for the war continued. Nurses were in huge demand but their work was “grueling and grim.”
All over people were becoming sick and dying with outbreaks reported in 43 states. The numbers were astounding. One quarter of the soldiers were ill at 26 military camps. 38,000 cases were reported in Chicago. 145,000 flu and pneumonia cases were reported and 20,000 died in New York City.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Walt Disney, and Mahatma Ghandi became sick with the flu. At the peace conference in Paris in 1919, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, and U.S. President Woodrow Wilson were infected. Austrian Expressionist painter Egon Schiele died of the flu shortly after painting his pregnant wife who was dying from the flu.
At least 17 million died of the flu in India. Half of South Africa fell ill of the flu. It was believed that “[o]ne-third of the world had been infected.” It was estimated that approximately “650,000 Americans and 50 million people died worldwide.” However, reporting cases were primitive or nonexistent and the exact total will never be known.
Typically the flu lasted six to eight weeks, but it reignited in 1919. Researchers struggled for years to determine the cause.
This illustrated book was published in 2019 before the outbreak of our present pandemic. It provides well researched information about the 1918 flu graphically. There is an excellent bibliography of books and periodicals, and on-line resources, including The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John Barry that I read. I recommend this book for a more cursory but fact-laden read and Barry’s book for a more in-depth analysis.
In March 1918, an army cook reported sick at Camp Funston, Kansas. Within a month, 48 were dead and 1,000 ill. Dr. Loring Miner of Haskell County had already treated patients for what he believed was severe influenza. The sickness spread to other army camps, 1,000 Ford Motor Company workers in Detroit, 500 inmates in San Quentin Prison, California, an American military camp in Bordeaux, France, and through the British, French, and German soldiers. When it spread to Spain, which had no censorship, it became known as the Spanish flu. Ships laden with sick sailors arrived in Sierra Leone, who infected African laborers, resulting in the deaths of 1,000 Africans.
On August 27, three sailors in Boston became ill causing others to quickly sicken. In a nearby army base, after one man reported ill, 8,000 patients overburdened the hospitals with 66 men dying in 24 hours. By the end of September 757 soldiers had died, and there were no more coffins. The Massachusetts Health officials in Boston claimed the cases were diminishing when within weeks hundreds sickened and 334 died. A month later, 3,000 people had died in Boston and the surrounding area. After sailors were moved from Boston to Philadelphia, 600 fell ill within 36 hours and 1500 sickened at Camp Dix.
At the start of October, 4,000 were sick in Philadelphia with 570 dying in four days. Businesses and services ceased. There were not enough doctors and nurses as they were away serving in the war. 11,000 died in October. Morticians and funeral parlors were overwhelmed. 13,462 died from influenza or the subsequent pneumonia the last four months of 1918 in Philadelphia.
Dust was initially blamed for spreading the disease. People were told not to kiss, spit, or trade “handkerchiefs, pipes, or towels.” Desperate means were used to fight the illness such as onions, mustard, and goose grease poultices. As the disease spread to the West coast, San Francisco and Oakland passed ordinances mandating face masks. Masked cops arrested “mask slackers.” While many gatherings were banned, fund-raising rallies and Liberty Loan drives for the war continued. Nurses were in huge demand but their work was “grueling and grim.”
All over people were becoming sick and dying with outbreaks reported in 43 states. The numbers were astounding. One quarter of the soldiers were ill at 26 military camps. 38,000 cases were reported in Chicago. 145,000 flu and pneumonia cases were reported and 20,000 died in New York City.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Walt Disney, and Mahatma Ghandi became sick with the flu. At the peace conference in Paris in 1919, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, and U.S. President Woodrow Wilson were infected. Austrian Expressionist painter Egon Schiele died of the flu shortly after painting his pregnant wife who was dying from the flu.
At least 17 million died of the flu in India. Half of South Africa fell ill of the flu. It was believed that “[o]ne-third of the world had been infected.” It was estimated that approximately “650,000 Americans and 50 million people died worldwide.” However, reporting cases were primitive or nonexistent and the exact total will never be known.
Typically the flu lasted six to eight weeks, but it reignited in 1919. Researchers struggled for years to determine the cause.
This illustrated book was published in 2019 before the outbreak of our present pandemic. It provides well researched information about the 1918 flu graphically. There is an excellent bibliography of books and periodicals, and on-line resources, including The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John Barry that I read. I recommend this book for a more cursory but fact-laden read and Barry’s book for a more in-depth analysis.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 15, 2020
3.5 - good bibliography, generally strong presentation though disjointed for me in spots.
Read
June 9, 2020Strangely similar to present circumstances
September 11, 2020
I really love reading non-fiction graphic novels.
This was both horrifying and enlightening. I didn't know (maybe still don't know enough) about the Spanish flu that really ran its course in the 1918s to 1920s. I felt like this book was informational, and interesting but considering we're literally living in a pandemic with a virus similar to the flu this did hit pretty close to home.
This was both horrifying and enlightening. I didn't know (maybe still don't know enough) about the Spanish flu that really ran its course in the 1918s to 1920s. I felt like this book was informational, and interesting but considering we're literally living in a pandemic with a virus similar to the flu this did hit pretty close to home.
February 5, 2021
A very brief graphic summary of "Ex Influential Colesti" aka "Una Influenza" aka "Spanish flu" with beautiful illustrations by Don. The flu infected 1/3rd of the world population.
It was a brutal pandemic for its time like COVID situation now . So many similarities on how governments handled the situation, how people reacted , conspiracy theory beliefs, rampant quackery etc.
Children invented songs like " I had a bird and his name was Enza. I opened a window and IN-FLU-ENZA "
Surprised to learn even Mahatma Gandhi got infected at that time and recovered.
It was a brutal pandemic for its time like COVID situation now . So many similarities on how governments handled the situation, how people reacted , conspiracy theory beliefs, rampant quackery etc.
Children invented songs like " I had a bird and his name was Enza. I opened a window and IN-FLU-ENZA "
Surprised to learn even Mahatma Gandhi got infected at that time and recovered.
September 14, 2019
The end was frankly a bit terrifying.
February 23, 2021
This is an informative graphic novel about the killer flu of 1918. I found the similarities between this killer flu and the current pandemic to be startling. There's a lot of information on each page and I do not think children would enjoy reading this book.
September 21, 2020
Definitely a timely book, which will increase student interest in it. I think it would be more engaging than a straight series information book, but this one didn't grab me as emotionally as some of Brown's other works have.
January 12, 2020
This is the story of the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918. Told in graphic format with art that reflects the somber theme of the book. While not a happy story, it is definitely very informative. It gives a good representation through graphics and words how the flu spread so quickly and to so many countries. I think teachers would find this book very useful. I think kids and adults who are not that familiar with the flu epidemic of 1918, would learn a lot from this book. It is a quick read and it covers the time from 1918 at the start of the flu until about 1922. It is a good reminder of how diseases can travel and spread across the globe very quickly even today.
April 18, 2021
Very interesting information presented: a city-by-city account of the flu pandemic of 1918. The author gathered stories from interviews and quotes from public officials. It is uncanny how many parallels there are to the COVID-19 pandemic. While the author's research could have been presented as a scholarly article, the graphic novel format helps draw a picture for the reader. Although the drawings were not as sophisticated as I have seen in other graphic novels, they are effective in allowing the reader to understand the events that took place. I especially liked the section at the end, explaining how a virus works through cellular RNA.
January 10, 2021
Framed as a tragedy in three acts, "Fever Year" is a sparsely furnished, sepia-toned rendering of the great influenza of 1918 (which, spoiler alert, actually lingered long into 1920 and was never really cured). It came to be known in the newspapers as the Spanish Flu, but most likely it first manifested itself at Camp Funston military base in Kansas and had nothing whatsoever to do with Spain. The flu virus also transmitted easily on ships and in ports, so it quickly spread across the continents and soon became a devastating pandemic that, on the tail end of World War I, contributed to the notion of a global "lost generation."
Using a number of source materials, writer and illustrator Don Brown deftly chronicles various outbreaks and aftermaths, domestic and abroad, as if dropping grim narrative pins along a jotty timeline of events that added up to nearly 50 million deaths worldwide, including 650,000 Americans. Nearly every human form in this gray and brown-hued book inhabits an off-kilter body and a face strained in shadow, showing how helpless, anguished people struggled to understand the virus and suffered desperately in its invisible, unrelenting grip.
Using a number of source materials, writer and illustrator Don Brown deftly chronicles various outbreaks and aftermaths, domestic and abroad, as if dropping grim narrative pins along a jotty timeline of events that added up to nearly 50 million deaths worldwide, including 650,000 Americans. Nearly every human form in this gray and brown-hued book inhabits an off-kilter body and a face strained in shadow, showing how helpless, anguished people struggled to understand the virus and suffered desperately in its invisible, unrelenting grip.
February 17, 2021
This is a nonfiction graphic novel about the Flu of 1918 or what is incorrectly referred to as the Spanish Flu. I thought that this was well done and there were many parallels with the current COVID pandemic we are experiencing. For me it was 3 stars because it felt uneven to me. At times it was too much of an Information dump and then others it was flowing nicely. It does a nice job of presenting the information in a reader friendly way but it did not keep my attention the entire time.
October 19, 2020
I love every Don Brown graphic novel I've read. What's going on now is a lot like then! Scientific progress doesn't make the human race any brighter.
January 19, 2021
This was a really interesting comparison to what we are experiencing in our current pandemic.
February 17, 2021
Not my favorite Don Brown book, but nothing wrong with it either. It was a little stilted and dry. There were snippets of notable people being introduced, but it is more general & information-focused overall (people got sick, people went to the hospital, people tried to find out what caused the sickness).
April 20, 2021
Very interesting, informative and scary....
June 6, 2020
Well, that was like deja vu all over again.
2020 - A graphic novel (except it was true)
2020 - A graphic novel (except it was true)
April 1, 2021
Wow the similarities between the 1918 pandemic and our current pandemic were so interesting. Brown doesn't fail to present a very accurate and compelling book.
August 1, 2020
This is a well done historical graphic novel. I learned a lot and am interested to learn more about the "Spanish" flu. Like, I had no idea it began in the US for starters! Or that the word influenza comes from the word influence.
The source list in the back of the book makes my nerdy little heart so happy. Holy Citations, Batman!
The source list in the back of the book makes my nerdy little heart so happy. Holy Citations, Batman!
December 7, 2020
This is an easy to read graphic novel about the 1918 flu epidemic. It’s interesting to read about other pandemics while living through the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. There was controversy surrounding mask wearing just like now, but people did not understand how the flu spread from person to person because they still held rallies to raise funds for WWI. The transportation of soldiers contributed to the worldwide spread of the flu. 650,000 Americans and 50 million worldwide died of this pandemic, over the course of 4 years. Now we are at 281,000 Americans and 1,538,000 have died worldwide in the span of 9 months-1 year. This book will be interesting to young people grades 4-12, making it that rare kind of graphic nonfiction that appeals to a wide audience. I liked that the quotes were in orange, with source notes at the end. Well researched and very interesting.
August 16, 2020
2.5 stars, actually. Informative, as an introduction to the Influenza Pandemic of 1918 -1919, but it’s disjointed and dry, a simple recounting of facts. Useful as an educational tool. Is it meant for young readers? Brown’s author blurb on the inner back flap lists him as the author of many books for young readers, then shows his other historical GNs. The book doesn’t have a YA designation, but maybe that’s it’s intended audience?
February 4, 2020
Excellent overview of the pandemic, interestingly told. Know why it was called the Spanish flu? Because with WWI many countries with the epidemic had news blackouts-- the disease wasn't reported. Spain wasn't at war, so their papers told the world what was going on and people assumed Spain was where it began. I want to read more in depth about the epidemic but this is a fine start.
July 22, 2019
History teachers, consider using graphic novels to help teach events to students. The visuals are wonderful. and it offers students another way to understand the significance of specific events.
February 3, 2025
I expected this to be a light read with perhaps a surface level foray into some relevant historical and scientific context. However, this failed to meet even those expectations. Despite being published in 2019, this is bizarrely anti-mask, does nothing to educate readers on airborne transmission (deciding instead to convulute transmission and make it seem as if we still can't really say how it happens - this is misinformation!), and is frankly incredibly lazy in its exploration of the subject, opting for an incredibly subjective approach to a subject that should be easy to engage with objectively. What is the point of writing a book like this - one that combines an historical event with science - if not to offer people a way to learn from history? And how irresponsible can one be, to present a period in time that can offer us valuable lessons about how disease is spread and mechanisms that stifle transmission - like masking (nevermind he could have made virtually any effort to explain the difference between masking with gauze and masking with a respirator! Instead he just goes on unscientific rants about how oppressive masks are and how that makes them *bad*) - only to choose instead to preserve ignorance as if it is an objective inevitability? This could have been an accessible resource, but this author did not set out to provide that; he set out to write pseudoscientific propaganda, and that's what this is.
Complete waste of time.
Complete waste of time.
December 22, 2020
What a timely read. When he began working on it, Don Brown couldn’t have known how our current pandemic would catapult this onto reading lists everywhere. I picked it up for the very reason that it felt like a timely read. I was looking for books that might appeal to my students who are interested to learn more about pandemics. This seemed like a good pick since it’s short, about the pandemic COVID is being compared to, and we already own it (thanks, Junior Library Guild).
So much of this felt so familiar, which is kind of sad. The lockdowns, the cries for schools to open, the people being fed up with the pandemic, people in power not taking it as seriously as they should. There are just so many things that feel almost exactly the same. It’s an interesting history of the 1918 flu pandemic and Don Brown does an excellent job making it work in the graphic format. It’s a great addition to any nonfiction section. It’s already in my library and I recommend it for all middle and high school libraries.
So much of this felt so familiar, which is kind of sad. The lockdowns, the cries for schools to open, the people being fed up with the pandemic, people in power not taking it as seriously as they should. There are just so many things that feel almost exactly the same. It’s an interesting history of the 1918 flu pandemic and Don Brown does an excellent job making it work in the graphic format. It’s a great addition to any nonfiction section. It’s already in my library and I recommend it for all middle and high school libraries.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 312 reviews