Monday, February 27, 2012

Teen Book Scene: Deadly Character Feature


Introducing the author of Deadly, Julie Chibbaro...

Julie Chibbaro is the author of Deadly (Simon & Schuster 2011), a medical mystery about the hunt for Typhoid Mary. Deadly won the 2011 National Jewish Book Award, and was Top 10 on the American Library Association's Amelia Bloomer Project list. Deadly was named Outstanding Science Trade Book by the National Science Teachers Association for 2012. The novel has received excellent reviews from such journals as The New York Times, Kirkus Reviews, and School Library Journal.

Julie Chibbaro's first book, Redemption (Simon & Schuster 2004), an epic tale of love, kidnapping, and white Indians, won the 2005 American Book Award. In 2013, her new novel, Aurora Borealis & Amazing, will be published by Penguin (Dial BFYR), with drawings by Jean-Marc Superville Sovak.

Onto Prudence's Character Feature...

My feelings are private. Not for any reason other than I know that I’m not supposed to have them. Especially not when everyone around me has such normal desires: To be the next Gibson girl, to marry Will Stryker and have his babies. I know I’m not normal.

I do love a man, but he is 20 years older than me. I am interested in Gibson girls, but mostly because of what’s inside them. What makes them human.

No, no, that’s not entirely true either. I can’t define my interests so well. I’m not sure who I am, or which path to follow. Does any 16-year-old girl? Mrs. Browning says I should desire to be a governess for a rich family, or a banker’s secretary, but these things don’t appeal to me. I want to open up the world, see inside. How does a heart beat? Why does a stomach rumble? Why do people get sick and die? These are the things I wonder about.


Prudence Galewski doesn’t belong in Mrs. Browning’s esteemed School for Girls. She doesn’t want an “appropriate” job that makes use of refinement and charm. Instead, she is fascinated by how the human body works—and why it fails.

Prudence is lucky to land a position in a laboratory, where she is swept into an investigation of a mysterious fever. From ritzy mansions to shady bars and rundown tenements, Prudence explores every potential cause of the disease to no avail—until the volatile Mary Mallon emerges. Dubbed “Typhoid Mary” by the press, Mary is an Irish immigrant who has worked as a cook in every home the fever has ravaged. But she’s never been sick a day in her life. Is the accusation against her an act of discrimination? Or is she the first clue in solving one of the greatest medical mysteries of the twentieth century?

Thanks to Julie and Teen Book Scene!

LiLi

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