This book is a wonderful read. It presents facts in an arresting way and urges the reader to continue so he or she can help solve the mystery of why the influenza outbreak of 1918-1919 was so virulent and so deadly. It is informative without being too complex for as young as middle school readers on up to high school readers. It follows a great chronology and includes primary documents in the form of photographs.

One caveat: it has the potential to induce anxiety in young readers, especially because it directly addresses how we may be completely helpless in the face of a major outbreak of a new strain of influenza.

A drawback of this book today is that it was published in 2000 and is unlikely to be up-to-date. However, the reader can be encouraged to continue with independent research into contemporary knowledge of this strain of flu. ( )

This book concerns itself with the Influenza outbreak of 1918 which coincided with the final year of the First World War. Its title refers to a colloquial term for the disease due to victims turning purple from lack of oxygen. It reveals that the disease dis not linger, indeed it was gone within months of its arrival and that its cause is still somewhat of a mystery. What was most mystifying about the flu was that, contrary to other flu outbreaks, this disease only affected healthy adults rather than the young or the old who tended to survive contracting the disease. This is an absolute reversal of typical diseases which caused death in weakened patients. The book described how the disease spread across the world in "waves" and how it first became heavily reported on by the Spanish, leading to its more common nickname "Spanish Flu" as media coverage lead to the perception that it was more prevalent there. The book concluded by tracking a team of researchers as they traveled to Nome, Alaska to exhume and collect samples from those who died of the disease and were buried beneath the permafrost. The idea was that these scientists would get a better idea of what the virus was and perhaps create a vaccine in the event that it ever reemerged.
This would be a good book for Middle School and High School students ( )

A 1918 war, this is a good book to read to students so they can have an understanding of what the purple death was about. Some children do not know what it is. ( )