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- Nancy J. Keane
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BOOKTALKS -- QUICK AND SIMPLE
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.
SUBJECTS:
Apprentices -- Fiction
Orphans -- Fiction
Physicians -- Fiction
Medicine-- History -- Fiction