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nancy@nancykeane.com
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DeFelice,
Cynthia
THE APPRENTICESHIP OF LUCAS
WHITAKER
New York : Farrar, Straus,
Giroux, 1996.
IL 5-8
ISBN 0374346690 |
| Eleven
year old Lucas is doing the best he can to care for his mother. He has
watched the rest of his family die and his mother is sure to follow. They
have consumption. This is what people in the 1840's called the disease
tuberculosis. There was no cure and no real treatment. Lucas did what he
could but his mother still died. After he had buried her, a neighbor came
by to tell him of a cure that had worked with his son. It was too late
for Lucas's mother though. Lucas felt he had to leave his home and neighbors
and get away from the pain he felt over the loss of his family. He ran
for several days. He ended up in a town south of his home. There he found
work as an apprentice to the town doctor. He learned much from the doctor
about helping sick people. The town was also suffering from an outbreak
of consumption. The doctor told them there was no cure but the townsfolk
had heard of the mystery cure of the undead that Lucas had been told of
by his neighbor. Can the dead really come back to make others sick? Can
the "cure" really work? Join Lucas as he learns the difference between
science and superstition. |
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SUBJECTS:
Apprentices -- Fiction
Orphans -- Fiction
Physicians -- Fiction
Medicine-- History -- Fiction |
© 
Permission is granted for the
noncommercial duplication and use of this resource, provided it is substantially
unchanged from its present form and appropriate credit is given.
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