The Great Plague cover

The Great Plague

by Pamela Oldfield

A time of horror has come to London. In one terrible summer, more than 15% of its population will perish. As the bubonic plague ravages London's streets, mercilessly plucking up victims and filling the plague pits with corpses, 13-year-old Alice Paynton records the outbreak in her diary. "It seems that in the past week 700 people have died of the plague. So the plague has well and truly come to London ... One of the houses in the next street had a red cross painted on the door. Above the cross someone had chalked _Lord Have Mercy Upon Us._" Alice's chilling diary brings alive one of the darkest moments in British history: the Great Plague of 1665-1666.

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Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?