Another Fever Year? Making sense of pandemics with a historical graphic novel

Abstract

This qualitative study highlights how children's literature can serve as a springboard for discussing current events while making connections with a similar historical event. Undergraduate students enrolled in children's literature courses read the graphic novel Fever Year: The Killer Flu of 1918 and discussed the parallels between the book and the COVID‐19 pandemic. Findings indicate strong text‐to‐self and text‐to‐world connections between the events of the flu of 1918 highlighted in the graphic novel and those of the COVID‐19 pandemic. Connections included restrictions and closures, mask mandates, vaccine development, medical theories, and theories of spread. Information dissemination and consumption was a prominent theme.