So this week I had time to read two very, very good books. The first book I read was Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson. I read this book because I know many people who have read it and everyone says it's a good book. I also read A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park. I thought they were both amazing. Even though Fever 1793 was kind of predictable at some parts, I still couldn't put it down. A Long Walk to Water was not very predictable. I finished them very quickly because they were so good.
So starting with Fever 1793. In case you haven't read it (spoiler alert), Fever was about a girl named Mattie. Her family owned a coffeehouse. (Her mother, grandfather, and her). Then fever struck the city where they lived. Then Mattie's mom gets the fever. So she sends Mattie's grandfather to take her to a farm so she doesn't get sick. But on the way there, these police stop the carriage that another family is driving and checks to make sure no one has fever. They think Mattie's grandfather does so the family driving throws Mattie and her grandfather off the carriage and Mattie has to take care of her sick grandfather. Then Mattie gets yellow fever. But it turns out that the grandfather had just had a cold so he carried Mattie back to town to be taken care of. Mattie gets well but then her grandfather dies. So she has to learn to survive on her own. She finds their old cook who worked for the coffeehouse (a freed black woman named Eliza) and she lets Mattie live with her. Then the cook and Mattie decide to own the coffeehouse together. It turns out that Mattie's mother had gone to the farm when she was well enough and then descovered once she got there that Mattie hadn't made it. Then she finally makes it home to see Mattie and Eliza taking care of the coffeehouse and keeping it in business and then the fever is gone thanks to the frost.
I loved this book! Usually I don't like books about history, but I thought I would give this book a try and I loved it. Some parts were predictable, but many others were not. Like when the grandfather got sick, I was very surprised it turned about to be something other than yellow fever. I was also surprised when Mattie decided to take in Nell, the little orphaned girl that Mattie finds. From what I had seen of Mattie, I was not expecting her to go in the house and ask a little girl if the broken doll Mattie found was hers since Mattie doesn't really like work. Also, when Nell got well after the fever, I was very happy. I had expected her not to since she was so little, but I guess the frost helped. I also would have guessed that Mattie's grandfather would have caught the yellow fever since he was older and weaker. So basically, I thought this book was very entertaining, predictable (in some parts), and unpredictable all at the same time.
So onto A Long Walk to Water. I absolutely loved this book. At first it kind of confused me, but once I got used to reading two different stories set in two different times, it wasn't very hard to keep up. Anyways, A Long Walk to Water was about these two kids who lived in Sudan(Warning, another spoiler). Salva lived there as a kid in 1985. He had to run from home because of the war and lived in refugee camps. Then one refugee camp he went to were picking some people there to go to America. He got chosen. There at America, he learned English. Then he had an idea to help Sudan. You don't find out his idea until the very end of the book. Then there's Nya. She lives in Southern Sudan in 2008. Twice a day everyday she has to walk to a pond that is very very far away to get water. Then a group of people come to her home. They start to build a well for Nya's village. Now Nya won't have to spend her days walking to the pond to get water and can go to the school that they are building. Nya's village is the Nuer village. They are enemies with the Dinkas. So when Nya's brother tells her the leader of the group of the group of people building the well is Dinka, she feels like she has to say thank you. I guess I should have guessed the ending, but I was still surprised when the leader had introduced himself as Salva to Nya. So it turns out that this would be his project for Sudan.
There were so many sad parts in both of these books! Although you probably heard about more people dying in Fever, I think that A Long Walk to Water was probably sadder because of the fact that you knew the people better. Like when Marial dies in A Long Walk to Water, I think it's sadder than two people dying in the other book because you knew more about Marial. It would be like if a stranger died and then someone you know dying. I was also very sad when the robbers on horses came and killed Salva's uncle on their way to a refugee camp. So they were both very sad, but also very, very good. I am very glad that I was able to read them. The only bad thing about reading a very good book is the fact that I usually lose track of time while I am reading in bed and when I look at the time it is very late. And then I sleep until very late. But it is always worth it. And wow. This is a very long post.
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