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**// Year of Wonders //**


 * By: Geraldine Brooks**
 * ISBN:** **9781841154589**
 * Published: 2002**


 * Classroom activity guide by Mandy Newman**


 * About the Book **

In 1665, in the remote English village of Eyam—a small and close knit community of lead miners and shepherds, cobblers and weavers—the bubonic plague ("The Black Death") has taken the town hostage both literally and figuratively. In a decision brought about by Michael Mompellion, the radical but much-admired town minister, the villagers of Eyam quarantine themselves in their "wide green prison" and vow to suffer the scourge alone.

Believing that the plague is God's judgment on their sinful world, most of the devoutly Christian villagers beg forgiveness and look for ways to assuage God's ire—the most puritanical take up self-flagellation in an attempt to cleanse themselves. Almost completely cut off from the outside world (save for the ingenious "boundary stone"), and after panic has well and truly set in, the villagers turn on one another. In episodes that illustrate both the best of human nature (ministering to the sick) and the worst (a gravedigger profiteering from the dead), the townspeople grapple with their grief and fear. It is up to the story's heroine—a young, widowed housemaid named Anna Frith—to raise the existential questions about the origins of the plague, and she therefore becomes the embodiment of the conflict at the center of the novel: God versus Nature.

O let it be enough what thou hast done, When spotted deaths ran arm'd through every street, With poison'd darts, which not the good could shun, The speedy could outfly, or valiant meet.

The living few, and frequent funerals then, Proclaim'd thy wrath on this forsaken place: And now those few who are return'd agen Thy searching judgments to their dwellings trace.

- From [|//Annus Mirabilis, The Year of Wonders, 1666//] by John Dryden


 * To the Teacher **

These notes and activities are generally suited to students in years 10-12 but could be used more widely. Please select and adapt according to your students’ needs. Some websites have been linked to these classroom activities, but your school library or public library will have wonderful resources, too. Help students develop their information literacy skills by discussing other possible sources/places to access information.