The Great Trouble by Deborah Hopkinson

The Great Trouble: a Mystery of London, the Blue Death, and a Boy Called Eel, by Deborah Hopkinson. Knopf, 2013, 247 pages with historical notes.

Reading Level: Middle Grades, Ages 8-10
Maturity Level: 4 (Ages 11-12)

London, 1854: “Eel,” at 13, is on his way up after a brief career as a mudlark, when he scrounged along the banks of the Thames for anything he could sell. Now he’s a boy-of-all-work at the Lion Brewery—that is, until a vengeful colleague sticks him with a charge of embezzlement and he’s out on the street again. Eel has two pressing concerns: providing for his little brother Henry, who is currently boarding with a reluctant housewife, and avoiding his stepfather, Fisheye Bill, who means him no good. And soon he’ll have another worry: an outbreak of the “Blue Death” (cholera) in his very neighborhood. Fortunately, Eel is a resilient, resourceful, and uncomplaining lad who also catches some breaks, including friendship with Florrie and acquaintances with Dr. John Snow and Rev. Henry Whitehead.

Dr. Snow is an actual historical figure, credited with the discovery that cholera was a water-borne disease traceable to a single pump on London’s Broad Street. The fictional Eel gets a chance to help him make this discovery (the real story, for those who are interested, is told in Steven Johnson’s The Ghost Map). The plot is a bit thin and the dialogue sometimes over-expository. But there’s a happy ending, an admirable main character, and an accurate portrayal of a time and place when life was precarious but getting better. The similarities of cholera with Ebola, and the means of spreading the disease, make this story especially relevant to today. The description of the disease is graphic, and its seriousness not soft-pedaled: It was like Death had tiptoed in among us, freezing us in our places until he’d done his work and left. And what Death did was solemn and awful. Not for very sensitive readers, perhaps, but the positives outweigh the negatives.

Overall rating: 3.5 (out of 5)

• Worldview/moral value: 3.75
• Artistic value: 3.5

Cautions: Depressing subject matter (graphic depiction of cholera)
Categories: Historical Fiction, Middle Grades, History, Character Values