Changes

|title=All Fall Down

|reviewer=Mary Esther Judy

|genre=Teens

|borrow=Yes

|isbn=9781407121727

|pages=256

|publisher=Marion Lloyd Books

|date=March 2012

|website=http://www.sallynicholls.com/

|summary=When the Black Death finally strikes Isabel's quiet Yorkshire village, her entire world comes crashing down. An incredible story of survival and courage, All Fall Down is not only a brilliant work of historical fiction, but recommended to sit alongside contemporary dystopian fiction.

}}

It’s the summer of 1349. Isabel lives her young life as a villein, tied to the land which the family rents from the Lord of the small village of Ingleform in Yorkshire. Leaving is not an option. Life as a villein is hard, but nothing has prepared Isabel for the all-consuming Black Death decimating everything in its path as it sweeps across Europe. But when the plague runs riot across all of Britain, finally reaching her town, life there is devastaed. It seems the world will end in a wave of fear, pestilence and horror.

It may seem strange to want to set All Fall Down, a sterling historical novel set in Medieval England, alongside the current crop of dystopian literature for young adults. But I would not hesitate to do so. As Nicholls states herself in the preface, the Black Death was the single most catastrophic event in the history of Europe, wiping out from one-half to two-thirds of the population at the time. Its apocalyptic nature and story of survival recounted in this book begs consideration in terms of dystopian fiction. An incredible story of survival and courage.

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[[Category:Confident Readers]]

[[Category:Historical Fiction]]