An intriguing look at a moment in time: not just the 1918 influenza epidemic that serves as the backdrop, but the changes wrought in the life of narrator Winnie. I enjoyed how this book provided a window into both the macro and the micro. We see how the fear of the epidemic spreads even ahead of the disease itself, while at the same time exploring Winnie's relationship with her troubled mother.

Grades 4-6
Life in Winnie’s small town outside of Galveston, Texas is predictable in 1918—until the residents start feeling the effects of the influenza pandemic that is sweeping the country. Suddenly, healthy adults and children are being struck down in a matter of days, and there is no known cure. Twelve-year-old Winnie feels that she must take matters into her own hands to protect her family: her emotionally frail mother cannot guard Winnie’s two younger sisters, and her grandmother refuses to be distracted from her efforts to be accepted among the social elite of the town. When her friend Nolan decides to break into the general store to obtain some Vicks VapoRub, advertised as a preventative against the flu, Winnie accompanies him, but they are unsuccessful in their attempts. Winnie and her grandmother manage to avoid being infected, but they must nurse the rest of the family, and Winnie loses first her mother, then her best friend, to the illness. Moss attempts to introduce middle-grade students to a period in our history about which little has been written. Her efforts are only partially successful: there is too much going on in this brief novel for the reader to ever really engage with Winnie. Less can be better, but in this case, so little is done to develop the characters that they come across as two-dimensional and unsympathetic. Moss’s end notes about this flu that killed more than 20 million people worldwide are informative, but many readers will not have the patience to make it to the end of the book. An additional purchase. ( )

Winnie’s small town of Coward Creek, Texas, is just outside Galveston, decimated by the great 1900 hurricane. Almost two decades later, there’s another looming disaster: the Spanish influenza. When Winnie’s father brings her along on a carpentry job to measure a deceased neighbor for a coffin, Winnie knows that the flu has come to Coward Creek. She will try anything she can to protect her family and keep them from catching the flu, even though she knows that the home remedies are all but useless. In addition to protecting everyone from illness, Winnie is coping with her withdrawn mother, a best friend who suddenly wants nothing to do with her, and a grandmother who finds fault in Winnie’s every action.

This is not so much about the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, but rather it’s a quiet, character-driven story. While Winnie and her grandmother are well drawn, though, many others blend into an amalgam of Townspeople (and there are a lot of them). The pandemic is more a background detail than a plot—it’s something that’s happening while Winnie is navigating the individual relationships with her friends and family members. There’s a lot going on here and it’s hard to determine what the central element is. The facts are meticulously researched, but Winnie’s voice is colored with only a flat, low-level worry. With the Galveston area hit so mildly by this flu (especially as compared to cities like Boston and New York), there’s no sense of fear like there is in Laurie Halse Anderson’s Fever 1793 (for example).

Overall, this didn’t hold my interest (despite my curiosity about pandemics and how people dealt with them). For teen fiction dealing with pandemics, I’d recommend instead Fever 1793 as referenced above; for adult fiction, Myla Goldberg’s Wickett’s Remedy. ( )

The year is 1918 and the influenza pandemic is rushing through Coward Creek, Texas. This is the name of the town where Winnie lives. her father builds coffins for the towns people. he has been kept busy for qute some time. Winnie worries about all of the people who are getting the flu. Winnie has to learn to stay strong as the flu hits her own family and her friends. This was a slow book for me. I did enjoy the character development. I saw Winnie as a rambunctious child and then saw the underlying strength. Since I know so little about the Spanish Influenza the book has made me hungry to learn more. ( )

Reviewed by Joan Stradling for TeensReadToo.com

During the Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918, Winnie struggles to keep her family and friends safe. But how can she fight something she can't see?

In this time of illness, Winnie learns tough lessons about life, death, and a mother and grandmother she never fully understood.

WINNIE'S WAR kept me reading as I suffered with and cheered Winnie on. With such likeable and relatable characters, Moss pulled me effortlessly into Coward Creek, Texas, in the fall of 1918. I emotionally connected with Winnie and grew with her as she lived through a terrible time in history.

Through her beautiful prose, Moss brings this little known epidemic out of the past and shares the poignant story of Winnie's life.

I will definitely recommend this book to others (including a few history teachers I know), and I look forward to reading future books by Jenny Moss. ( )