Terrible Typhoid Mary: A True Story of the Deadliest Cook in America

by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Overview

From a Newbery Honor winner, “[a] well-researched biography of Mary Mallon, also known as Typhoid Mary…compelling.”—School Library Journal (starred review)
 
Long Island, 1906: Mary Mallon has been working as a cook for a wealthy family for just a few weeks when members of the household were felled by typhoid. Mary herself wasn’t sick—but as it turned out, she was a carrier—a healthy person who spread the disease to others.
 
When the New York City Board of Health found out about her, she was arrested and quarantined on an island. This biography tells the story of what she went through as she became the subject of a tabloid scandal. How she was treated by medical and legal officials reveals a lesser-known story of human and constitutional rights, entangled with the science of pathology and enduring questions about who Mary Mallon really was. How did her name become synonymous with deadly disease? And who is really responsible for the lasting legacy of Typhoid Mary?
 
This thorough exploration also includes archival photographs and primary sources, an author's note, a timeline, annotated source notes, and bibliography.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780544776807
Publisher:	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication date:	06/11/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	243
Sales rank:	260,962
File size:	12 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	12 - 18 Years

About the Author

Susan Campbell Bartoletti is the award-winning author of several books for young readers, including Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845-1850, winner of the Robert F. Sibert Medal. She lives in Moscow, Pennsylvania.Donna Postel should have known the path she'd take at the first grade play. Instead of getting to play a duck or a tree, she was cast in the only speaking role, The Narrator. Fast forward to the present and we find Donna in her state-of-the-art studio where she has been happily talking to herself ever since. Her voice has been heard on hundreds of commercials and corporate narrations, and she is positively thrilled to expand into audiobooks. When she's not in the studio, Donna can be found down at the barn, cleaning up after, and occasionally, riding horses.

Editorial Reviews

06/01/2015
In this thoroughly researched biography, Bartoletti (They Called Themselves the KKK) seeks to illuminate the backstory of “Typhoid Mary,” who allegedly infected nearly 50 individuals with the disease. Mary Mallon cooked for wealthy families in turn-of-the-20th-century New York City until she became the first documented “healthy carrier” of typhoid in the U.S. and was imprisoned in hospitals for most of her remaining life. Little is known about Mallon outside of one six-page letter she wrote, official documents, newspaper reports, journal articles, and other firsthand accounts of her. Though Bartoletti forms an objective portrait of Mallon’s case, she often has to rely on conjecture (“Mary probably didn’t understand that she could be a healthy carrier”), filling in gaps using deductive reasoning based on facts from that era. In the end, this study of Mallon’s ill-fated life is as much an examination of the period in which she lived, including the public’s ignorance about the spread and treatment of disease, the extreme measures health officials took to advance science, and how yellow journalism’s sensationalized stories could ruin someone’s reputation. Ages 10–up. Agent: Ginger Knowlton, Curtis Brown. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"Bartoletti skillfully weaves the answers into the beginning of the story, before moving on to Soper's cat-and-mouse game of tracking Mary down and then keeping her quarantined for most of the rest of her life...excellent nonfiction."  — Horn Book (starred review)

 "[A] thoroughly researched biography."  — Publishers Weekly

"Bartoletti delivers a fast-moving biography of Mallon herself...Enthusiastic and accessible, but it remains respectful, offering understanding and empathy for the numerous people affected by the outbreaks that followed in Mallon's wake."  — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

From the Publisher

★ 05/01/2015
Gr 5 Up—This well-researched biography of Mary Mallon, also known as Typhoid Mary, begins in 1906, when Mallon was hired as a cook for a wealthy family vacationing in Oyster Bay, Long Island. The outbreak of typhoid that swept through the household a few weeks later turned out to be a pivotal event that forever changed her life. George Soper, a sanitation engineer and typhoid expert, was hired to discover the source of the disease. He eventually determined that Mallon was what was known as a healthy carrier: although she experienced no symptoms of typhoid, her body continued to produce the bacteria, which she inadvertently shed. Soper took his discovery to the New York City Board of Health, and soon thereafter, Mallon was arrested and quarantined against her will on North Brother Island. Mallon has often been described as ignorant and a menace to society due to her refusal to stop working as a cook when she was later briefly released from quarantine, but Bartoletti tells the woman's story with empathy and understanding. The author also explores the myriad violations of Mallon's civil rights and her unusually harsh treatment in comparison to other healthy typhoid carriers (nationwide 50 carriers were identified at the time, but only Mary was quarantined). Energetic, even charming prose (chapter headings include "In Which Mrs. Warren Has a Servant Problem") will easily engage readers. Pair this work with Gail Jarrow's Fatal Fever: Tracking Down Typhoid Mary (Boyds Mills, 2015). VERDICT Middle grade biography lovers will gravitate toward this compelling title.—Ragan O'Malley, Saint Ann's School, Brooklyn, NY

School Library Journal

Donna Postel narrates in a quiet, carefully enunciated style. Her steady pace is perfect for the drama that unfolds around the infamous “Typhoid Mary,” the Irish immigrant who, in her role as a cook, passed typhoid fever to approximately 50 unsuspecting people. Postel uses an even voice as the facts of Mary’s involvement in cases of typhoid fever become clear and the book raises questions about the roles of the health department in protecting public health, the judicial system in handling such cases, and journalists in covering such stories as they arise. Given that author Bartoletti is careful to set Mary in her time period while sharing her human foibles, it’s no wonder that Postel’s voice softens and lingers on the events of Mary’s final years, including the care that friends provided her and the care with which she wrote her will. A.R. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

OCTOBER 2015 - AudioFile

2015-05-18
A creative approach, strong on vivid details and words that appeal to the senses, animates this biography of Typhoid Mary. It opens like a novel, with a scene in 1906 of a wealthy woman firing her cook. In "a terrible fix" to find a new one, she hires an Irish immigrant named Mary Mallon, who, unknowingly, turns out to be a typhoid-fever carrier later dubbed Typhoid Mary. The chapter's title, "In Which Mrs. Warren Has a Servant Problem," and its final one-sentence cliffhanger, "Mary's life was about to change forever," reflect literary techniques typically found in fiction, while art nouveau typeface for chapter titles and a closing "Photo Album" create an old-fashioned tone. The chronological narrative quotes from such primary sources as contemporary newspapers and books and incorporates information about the disease and the fight to eliminate it. In trying to supplement limited personal sources about Mallon, Bartoletti bogs down her writing with language like "perhaps," "most likely," "must have," and "may have." Responsible though such introductions to supposition are, the result is a narrative that feels uncertain and may have readers wondering about unvoiced alternative scenarios. One section, meant to tie the past to the present, misinterprets a Gallup poll, incorrectly stating that most Americans don't trust their local governments. Awkward attempts to improve on an inherently interesting topic undermine this otherwise fine account. (Nonfiction. 10-14)

Kirkus Reviews