Laurie Halse Anderson

Laurie Halse Anderson's newest book didn't start as a middle-grade novel, though that's what it would eventually become.

It started as a nonfiction picture book about the history of inoculations in the U.S. and around the world, an idea itself sparked when Anderson was recovering from an early case of COVID-19 in March of 2020 and considering what the HBO “John Adams” series “fudged” in their depiction of the process. But, as many traditionally published authors will tell you, working with a good editor can be transformative for a story. “I turned in a rough draft of that [picture book] originally,” Anderson says, “and my editor, Caitlyn Dlouhy—who’s a genius, for the record—she said, ‘You know, I think this might be a novel.”

Rebellion 1776 tells the story of Elsbeth Culpepper, a 13-year-old girl working in a Loyalist judge's house when Patriot cannon fire marks the start of the Siege of Boston. When Elsbeth’s only living relative, her father (her mother and siblings died in an earlier smallpox epidemic), goes missing and the judge is banished from Massachusetts with other Loyalists, Elsbeth has to figure out how to survive on her own. To avoid the orphanage, Elsbeth finds work as a maid for a wealthy family, though things take a turn for the worse when smallpox finds its way into Boston and debate rages about the risks and benefits of inoculation.