Quarantine: Keep Out‪!‬

It is 1919. A terrible influenza epidemic has made people around the world very sick. Many did not recover. Leah, Joseph and Jacob’s mother has a bad case of “the flu.” The doctor took her away from their prairie homestead farm and placed her in quarantine with two other sick people. Separating her from her husband and children was the only way that she wouldn’t spread the illness to her family. With mama away, twelve-year-old Leah is in charge of the house and her two brothers while their dear papa works in the fields. Nine-year-old Joseph has chores: milking the cow, gathering eggs and chopping enough wood to last through the Sabbath. Little Jacob misses mama so much he cries when he hears her name. It falls to Leah to comfort him and to prepare everything for their ‘Shabbos’ evening meal. In such a frightening time for many families, they worry - will mama get better?

Based on true events, QUARANTINE: KEEP OUT! is a children’s story about the influenza pandemic of 1918–1919. English, Hebrew and Yiddish words are introduced in this warm-hearted historical fiction account of one Jewish immigrant family’s experience.