More Deadly Than War

March 15, 2018
Facts, quotes, anecdotes, and visual images tell the combined history of the 1918 flu epidemic and World War I, emphasizing the role of disease in changing history. The introduction and nine chapters open with apt quotes, usually followed by a personal story, such as one in which a 16-year-old Walt Disney contracts the flu during Red Cross training. Statistics underscore the power of the epidemic, in which 100 million may have died worldwide. The ties between the war and the epidemic are made clear throughout. The first case was reported in an army camp in Kansas. Troops spread the disease around the U.S. and brought it to Europe, where it killed combatants on both sides of the war. Civilians caught it at schools and parades, and with no cure available, it was devastating. Although most of the medical, political, and military figures introduced are white males, brief sections discuss racism and the flu, relating stories about Native Alaskans on the Seward Peninsula and an Ogala family in Nebraska. Adequate black-and-white photographs break up the text every few pages. The smooth narrative excels at connecting the epidemic and the war but assumes a modicum of background knowledge about the war and occasionally suffers from repetitiveness. A 40-page appendix reviews the role of disease in history. Readable and informative. (notes, bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 11-15)

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April 2, 2018
Davis (In the Shadow of Liberty) immediately sets the urgent tone of his forthright chronicle, citing staggering statistics: the Spanish Flu pandemic that began in spring 1918 claimed the lives of more than 675,000 Americans in a single year and left a worldwide death toll estimated at 100 million. The author structures his exhaustive account of the origins, transmission, and consequences of the pandemic within the framework of WWI, underscoring the lethal concurrence of these “twin catastrophes.” The first recorded flu outbreak in the U.S. occurred at a military training camp in Kansas; infected soldiers then spread the virus on Europe-bound transport ships and delivered it to frontline barracks and trenches. Davis puts a human face on the pandemic, interlacing tales of political, military, and civilian luminaries struck by the flu, and also connects with readers through contemporary analogies, likening German propaganda to “fake news,” and a sneeze’s emission of fast-flying, virus-carrying droplets to “a video game with space invaders.” Davis also assiduously documents modern medical research and puts the pandemic in the context of medical history. Patriotic posters and photos illuminate both the spirit and devastation of the period. Ages 10–14.

April 1, 2018

Gr 7 Up-Davis, author of the "Don't Know Much About" series and In the Shadows of Liberty, applies his wide-ranging knowledge to this history of World War I and the Spanish Flu. Davis pulls no punches in his gruesome descriptions of medical wards, of entire families found dead in their homes, of a troop transport ship that became a "floating chamber of horrors," and how doctors were totally at a loss. He includes an abundance of first-hand testimonies, statistics, and a variety of images: a young, uniformed Ernest Hemingway; an advertisement designed by an up-and-coming Walt Disney, who survived the flu; and scenes from the trenches. The details often hit forcefully home, providing context. However, the three narrative threads-the story of war, the evolution of virus, and a history of medicine-are not as tightly woven as in Albert Marrin's Very, Very, Very Dreadful: The Influenza Pandemic of 1918. VERDICT A solid work of nonfiction, but in the light of better options, a secondary purchase.-Blake Holman, St. Joseph County Public Library, IN

Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2018
Grades 7-10 There are lots of books for teens about WWI, but this vivid account takes a fairly fresh approach: Davis (In the Shadow of Liberty, 2016) argues persuasively that the Spanish flu pandemic had as much?if not more?of an effect on the outcome of WWI than any military strategy. Citing plenty of primary sources, Davis lays out how the pandemic was spread, the largely ineffective efforts to curtail it, and the many ways government officials, swept up in waves of nationalism, ignored the advice of medical professionals, which ultimately made the pandemic worse. Davis lands hard on that last point? The story of the Spanish flu . . . is about how important it is to guard against unreasoning terror that has no basis in fact or science ?and although that sentiment occasionally gets lost in the staggering statistics and often-gruesome personal accounts, it's one that will ring especially true for today's young readers. Robust back matter provides further context, and plenty of historical photos and reproductions bolster the text. Engaging and illuminating.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)