Rebellion 1776
From New York Times bestselling author Laurie Halse Anderson comes an eerily timely historical fiction middle grade adventure about a girl struggling to survive amid a smallpox epidemic, the public's fear of inoculation, and the seething Revolutionary War.

In the spring of 1776, thirteen-year-old Elspeth Culpepper wakes to the sound of cannons. It's the Siege of Boston, the Patriots' massive drive to push the Loyalists out that turns the city into a chaotic war zone. Elspeth's father-her only living relative-has gone missing, leaving her alone and adrift in a broken town while desperately seeking employment to avoid the orphanage.

Just when things couldn't feel worse, the smallpox epidemic sweeps across Boston. Now, Bostonians must fight for their lives against an invisible enemy in addition to the visible one. While a treatment is being frantically fine-tuned, thousands of people rush in from the countryside begging for inoculation. At the same time, others refuse protection, for the treatment is crude at best and at times more dangerous than the disease itself.

Elspeth, who had smallpox as a small child and is now immune, finds work taking care a large, wealthy family with discord of their own, as they await a turn at inoculation, but as the epidemic and the revolution rage on, will she find her father?
1143029749
Rebellion 1776
From New York Times bestselling author Laurie Halse Anderson comes an eerily timely historical fiction middle grade adventure about a girl struggling to survive amid a smallpox epidemic, the public's fear of inoculation, and the seething Revolutionary War.

In the spring of 1776, thirteen-year-old Elspeth Culpepper wakes to the sound of cannons. It's the Siege of Boston, the Patriots' massive drive to push the Loyalists out that turns the city into a chaotic war zone. Elspeth's father-her only living relative-has gone missing, leaving her alone and adrift in a broken town while desperately seeking employment to avoid the orphanage.

Just when things couldn't feel worse, the smallpox epidemic sweeps across Boston. Now, Bostonians must fight for their lives against an invisible enemy in addition to the visible one. While a treatment is being frantically fine-tuned, thousands of people rush in from the countryside begging for inoculation. At the same time, others refuse protection, for the treatment is crude at best and at times more dangerous than the disease itself.

Elspeth, who had smallpox as a small child and is now immune, finds work taking care a large, wealthy family with discord of their own, as they await a turn at inoculation, but as the epidemic and the revolution rage on, will she find her father?
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Rebellion 1776

Rebellion 1776

by Laurie Halse Anderson

Narrated by Phoebe Strole

Unabridged — 10 hours, 0 minutes

Rebellion 1776

Rebellion 1776

by Laurie Halse Anderson

Narrated by Phoebe Strole

Unabridged — 10 hours, 0 minutes

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Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Laurie Halse Anderson has given us so many unforgettable historical stories for young readers, and she's back with another. Rebellion 1776 takes readers to the Revolutionary War and introduces us to Elspeth, a young girl in harsh times rising to the occasion in the name of survival.

From New York Times bestselling author Laurie Halse Anderson comes an eerily timely historical fiction middle grade adventure about a girl struggling to survive amid a smallpox epidemic, the public's fear of inoculation, and the seething Revolutionary War.

In the spring of 1776, thirteen-year-old Elspeth Culpepper wakes to the sound of cannons. It's the Siege of Boston, the Patriots' massive drive to push the Loyalists out that turns the city into a chaotic war zone. Elspeth's father-her only living relative-has gone missing, leaving her alone and adrift in a broken town while desperately seeking employment to avoid the orphanage.

Just when things couldn't feel worse, the smallpox epidemic sweeps across Boston. Now, Bostonians must fight for their lives against an invisible enemy in addition to the visible one. While a treatment is being frantically fine-tuned, thousands of people rush in from the countryside begging for inoculation. At the same time, others refuse protection, for the treatment is crude at best and at times more dangerous than the disease itself.

Elspeth, who had smallpox as a small child and is now immune, finds work taking care a large, wealthy family with discord of their own, as they await a turn at inoculation, but as the epidemic and the revolution rage on, will she find her father?

Editorial Reviews

2/3/2025 - Publishers Weekly

This well-crafted novel by Anderson (Shout) opens in March 1776, on the eve of the Loyalists’ forced evacuation of Boston. Period details of daily life during the events of the founding of the United State immerse readers in the era, and plot points become compellingly relevant to contemporary times when Boston is hit by the smallpox epidemic and controversies about inoculation abound.

02/1/25 - Kirkus

Told through Elsbeth’s clever, feminist, often-humorous perspective, this original and timely story immerses readers in her observations on an epidemic and vaccination, early American politics and society, and the meaning of family. Engrossing, entertaining, and heartfelt.

3/21/25 - New York Times 

[I]ts themes echo our current tensions: vaccine detractors versus promoters, royalists versus patriots, misogyny versus feminism, old ways of living and loving versus new ways of being true to oneself. [...] There is a fair bit of skulduggery as well — stolen fortunes, false accusations, thefts, betrayals — that adds mystery and suspense.. [...] Filled with immersive detail, expert delineations of complex characters, and both harsh and loving reality, “Rebellion 1776” provides young readers with a true experience of a historic moment in time that resonates with today’s world. To use Elsbeth’s celebratory last word, “Huzzah!

3/1/25 - School Library Journal

Another masterly account of colonial life from Anderson. [...] The plot is action-packed, reflecting the unprecedented times of the era. Each chapter opens with a quote from a contemporary historical figure, cementing the sense of time and place. Colorful dialogue, including period-accurate insults, i.e., “dunderhead” and “numbskull,” add authenticity. [...] Readers can draw several parallels between Elsbeth’s life and modern times, such as the debate over smallpox inoculation. [...] A must-buy for historical fiction collections, especially where Anderson’s Chains and Fever 1793 are popular.

02/01/2025 - STARRED Review Booklist

One of the narrative’s strengths is Anderson’s ability to create realistically flawed yet often appealing characters and relationships; another is how fully and sensitively she portrays the female characters’ reactions to the limited rights and roles of women in their society. Each chapter opens with a short, relevant quote from the correspondence, journals, or diaries of a notable such as Abigail Adams, John Adams, Ben Franklin, or George Washington. A thoroughly researched, emotionally resonant historical novel.

MAY 2025 - AudioFile

Listeners are presented with the roiling and realistic emotions of 13-year-old Elspeth Culpepper, who finds herself in the middle of the 1776 Siege of Boston. Narrator Phoebe Strole does a masterful job presenting the characters and their difficulties--from Elspeth's Loyalist master, who is forced to leave Boston, to the various members of the family for whom she becomes a housemaid afterward. The narrative, which Elspeth tells directly to listeners, incorporates historical quotes and relatable events, such as Boston's becoming an inoculation center against a raging smallpox epidemic, at the time an unpleasant, potentially dangerous process. Strole provides voices that reflect the characters' ages, genders, and emotions in the dangerous times that provide an entrancing story about the Revolutionary War. E.J.F. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2025, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2024-12-28
A girl fends for herself in Revolutionary War–era Boston.

Boston, 1776: 13-year-old Elsbeth Culpepper, a kitchen maid for a British loyalist judge, hunkers down during the chaos of George Washington’s violent siege on Boston. When the British are driven out and Elspeth’s sailmaker father—her only surviving family member after her mother and siblings died from smallpox—goes missing, Elsbeth is left to navigate an uncertain future on her own. She finds employment with former Patriot spy Mister Pike and his family, who have moved into the judge’s vacated home. Elsbeth is once more a maid, this time to the six Pike children and Hannah Sparhawk, the family’s sharp-witted, highborn charge. With the help of best friend Shubel Kent, Elsbeth searches for Pappa even as the city is ravaged by an explosion in smallpox numbers and a new government forms amid talk of independence. As she cares for the Pike family during their recovery from smallpox inoculation, Elsbeth must protect her own interests against outside forces, including the Pikes’ bitter housekeeper and a disreputable acquaintance of her father’s, all the while forming a friendship with Hannah and staying true to herself. Told through Elsbeth’s clever, feminist, often-humorous perspective, this original and timely story immerses readers in her observations on an epidemic and vaccination, early American politics and society, and the meaning of family. The main characters are white; the book contains references to enslaved people.

Engrossing, entertaining, and heartfelt. (map, bibliography, sources and references)(Historical fiction. 10-14)

Product Details

BN ID: 2940160359953
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Publication date: 04/01/2025
Edition description: Unabridged
Age Range: 10 - 13 Years

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1: Long Night of the Bombs

1. LONG NIGHT OF THE BOMBS
MONDAY, MARCH 4, 1776

... SOON AFTER CANDLELIGHT, CAME ON A MOST TERRIBLE BOMBARDMENT AND CANNONADE, ON BOTH SIDES, AS IF HEAVEN AND EARTH WERE ENGAGED.

—BOSTON SELECTMAN TIMOTHY NEWELL’S JOURNAL

Take away this puke bucket, girl, and bring me a clean one!”

Judge Bellingham bellowed like an angry ox, but I did not move. I couldn’t, not while the Patriot cannons boomed over and over with terrifying thunder. They were aimed at Boston, which meant they were aimed at me.

I was hiding, quite sensibly, under the table at the top of the stairs, in shouting distance of the judge’s bedchamber and far away from any window, in case a cannonball or mortar shell came crashing in. For a helmet, I wore a wooden bowl that smelled of cinnamon. (I’d been mixing a sweet dough in it when the Patriots unleashed more lethal mischief.)

The judge made another loud contribution to his puke bucket.

I held my hand over my mouth and swallowed hard, for the sound of his retching made my own insides go funny.

My employer was suffering mightily with gout in the toes of his left foot. Adding to his woes, his stomach had turned sour at sunset, so he’d taken to his bed, groaning loudly about his afflictions. I brought him a pot of ginger tea, but he demanded a flask of wine and more of the mutton soup served at supper. I’d suggested toasted bread on account of his bellyache. He reminded me that I was a blockhead kitchen maid.

But I ask you, who was puking up the mutton soup now?

“Did you hear me?” he roared.

Three nearby British cannons boomed, as if answering his question. The force of the sound rattled every window in the house and shattered the mirror that hung above the table. Shards of glass rained down around me and onto the dusty floorboards. I cringed, clutched my helmet, and counted: one, two, three. No cannonball crashed through the wall. No fire exploded through the front door.

“Get me a clean bucket now!” hollered the judge.

George Washington’s Patriot army had kept ten thousand British soldiers pinned down in Boston for nearly a year now. This siege made the lives of the few ordinary folks trapped in the town (like me) a misery. Two nights earlier, the Patriot cannons had begun bombarding us, changing our circumstances from difficult to terrifying. I wished that the mothers of every soldier on both sides would magically appear, grab their sons by the ear, and drag them home for a well-earned thrashing. Then we could dump all the cannons and guns into the sea and go about living our lives in a more sensible manner.

I sighed. Weaving dreams and fantasies produced a cloth of regret, that’s what Pappa said.

“Answer me, you sniveling featherbrain!” the judge demanded. “Are you still there?”

“Yes, sir,” I called, even though I was neither sniveling nor a featherbrain.

“Bring me that blasted bucket or I’ll put you on the street!”

Losing my job meant losing a place to sleep and three meals a day, which scared me even more than the cannonballs. I dashed down the hall to an unused bedroom, grabbed a chamber pot, and cleaned the spiderwebs out of it with my apron as I ran.

The judge most closely resembled an ancient snapping turtle; one that wore a stained, purple silk robe over a nightshirt and an old-fashioned gray wig. His gout-plagued foot was propped up on a high stack of pillows, but the rest of him, thankfully, was hidden under the rumpled blankets. The judge had not washed in ages, which made the room reek of decay, like his anger was rotting him from the inside out.

He glared at me. “About time, you idle dolt.”

I curtsied and replaced the disgusting puke bucket with the chamber pot. “Apologies, sir.”

He pushed himself higher against the mahogany headboard. “I require the attention of Doctor Church. Fetch him immediately.”

“Beg pardon, sir?”

“Do you not understand English?” he snapped.

I took a half step backward to ensure that I was out of his reach. Contradicting my master was tricky work. “The rebels arrested Doctor Church for spying, sir, months ago,” I cautiously reminded him. “He’s jailed in Connecticut.”

“I know that!” His face flushed scarlet with embarrassment. “Do you imagine that I am ignorant?”

For a moment, Judge Abraham Trink Bellingham—wealthy merchant and member of the Royal Governor’s Council—did not look like a powerful owner of ships, shops, and houses. He was just an old man in need of much assistance, whose mind had begun to wander, mayhaps on account of the bombardment.

“Of course not, sir,” I said gently. “But I can see that you are not well. Should I brew some more ginger tea to soothe your belly? Or mayhaps mint?”

“Tea will not help my toes.” He lifted his chin and smoothed the front of his robe, trying to regain his dignity. “Send up Jane, or that other maid, what’s her name... Elizabeth.”

“I am Elsbeth, sir. Jane and Rose are sleeping with the other soldier wives in the barracks tonight. For their safety, sir.”

“Oh,” he muttered. “Why did you not go with them?”

“I’m not married, sir. I’m only sixteen,” I lied. (Adding three years to my true age made life simpler. I was already taller than most women, so no one questioned my claim.)

He looked me over, starting at my uncomfortable shoes, traveling up my form, and pausing on the smallpox scars that speckled my cheeks. “Quite a gollumpus, aren’t you? I wager you’ve been eating me out of house and home.”

The insult made me clutch my apron, and imagine the pleasure of emptying the puke bucket on his head.

“What is your surname?” he continued.

The unexpected question startled me. “Sir?”

“Cunningham?”

“Culpepper, sir.”

“Ah.” He nodded. “Now I remember. Your father’s a sailor.”

“Sailmaker, sir, at Grenock and Withers’s sail loft. Missus Grenock recommended me to your former housekeeper when we arrived last year.”

He wiped his mouth on a grubby handkerchief. “When was that, exactly?”

“Just before the”—I chose my words carefully—“before the ungrateful rebels started this dreadful standoff.”

“Lexington and Concord.” He scratched the stubble on his chin. “An unfortunate moment to come to Boston.”

I nodded. “Pappa has the curse of ill timing.”

“And thus, I am cursed with his daughter.” He spat into the chamber pot and looked me over again. “A pockmarked, slothful wench best suited for farmwork.”

His tone had turned sharp again. His wits were no longer wandering.

Ignoring his insults, I tried my best to appear meek, which was not my natural attitude. “We are deeply grateful for your generosity,” I said, gentling my voice, as if trying to calm a rabid dog. “Working in such a respected home is an honor, sir, particularly in this uncertain time.”

Judge Swinehead grabbed his glass. “Fetch me a doctor. I don’t care which one.” He took a big swig of wine. “But I warn you; do not return without a man who will help my toes.”

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