This is not a topic I'm well-read on (too many childhood nightmares!), but here's a few suggestions anyway:
The Secret Garden and the Veleveteen Rabbit are two classic, out-of-copyright kids' books that deal with epidemics as a major plot point.
"Path of the Pale Horse" by Paul Fleischman is another YA novel about the Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic; it did, in fact, induce nightmares when I was nine.
Boccacio's Decameron should probably be on the list...
And for a slight change, the first book of Neil Gaiman's Sandman graphic novel deals with the 1920s "sleepy sickness" (encephalitis lethargica) epidemic (which is also a major theme of some of Oliver Sacks' nonfiction, and the movie "Awakenings" based on it.)
I would love to find a good historical novel dealing with the Spanish flu. Or with the polio epidemics. I keep thinking I've read a ton of novels about epidemics, but when I think harder, they all turn out to be non-historical SF/Fantasy. (Epidemics come up a *lot* in my SF, it seems.) Or Highlander fanfic. *cough*
BTW, Hambly's Benjamin January mysteries are very highly recommended; I haven't read them, but have had glowing reviews from people whose opinions are generally good. And Hambly's vampire novel They Who Hunt The Night has quite a bit of (hauntingly done) reminiscences about the plague years from the older vampires.
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Date: 2009-06-09 07:45 am (UTC)The Secret Garden and the Veleveteen Rabbit are two classic, out-of-copyright kids' books that deal with epidemics as a major plot point.
"Path of the Pale Horse" by Paul Fleischman is another YA novel about the Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic; it did, in fact, induce nightmares when I was nine.
Boccacio's Decameron should probably be on the list...
And for a slight change, the first book of Neil Gaiman's Sandman graphic novel deals with the 1920s "sleepy sickness" (encephalitis lethargica) epidemic (which is also a major theme of some of Oliver Sacks' nonfiction, and the movie "Awakenings" based on it.)
I would love to find a good historical novel dealing with the Spanish flu. Or with the polio epidemics. I keep thinking I've read a ton of novels about epidemics, but when I think harder, they all turn out to be non-historical SF/Fantasy. (Epidemics come up a *lot* in my SF, it seems.) Or Highlander fanfic. *cough*
BTW, Hambly's Benjamin January mysteries are very highly recommended; I haven't read them, but have had glowing reviews from people whose opinions are generally good. And Hambly's vampire novel They Who Hunt The Night has quite a bit of (hauntingly done) reminiscences about the plague years from the older vampires.