Pharmacy Girl Audiobook By Kate Szegda cover art

Pharmacy Girl

The Great War, Spanish Influenza, and the Truth About Billy Detwiler

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Pharmacy Girl

By: Kate Szegda
Narrated by: Virtual Voice
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This title uses virtual voice narration

Virtual voice is computer-generated narration for audiobooks.

About this listen

August 1918. Everybody likes twelve-year-old Josie Winslow. While she helps in the family drug store and plans for the first day of school, her pharmacist father is puzzled by newspaper articles about influenza arriving in New York on ships from Europe. It is still summer. Flu is a winter disease.

Billy Detwiler has been kicked out of prep school. No one, not even Billy, is happy he will be in Josie’s school let alone her eighth-grade class. He is a bully of the first order and is looking for his next victim. He calls Josie “Pharmacy Girl,” but it is no compliment.

By mid-October, what was once “just the flu” is now an epidemic. Doctors are baffled. Josie’s father has never seen anything like it. Flu is usually only a problem for the very old or the very young. But Spanish influenza is different: it is killing young and healthy adults—like Josie’s parents.

But there are no effective vaccines, no ventilators, and no anti-virals to stop a pandemic.

Can Josie help the people she loves, and the bully she hates, survive?

Published before COVID and inspired by stories of the author’s pharmacist grandfather, Pharmacy Girl is Kate Szegda’s award-winning debut novel for middle-grade readers and people who love history.

If you like historically rich page turners and heartwarming stories of hope and resilience, you will love Pharmacy Girl.

Awards

  • California Teachers' Association, California Reads selection 2021-2022
  • Readers' Favorite International Book Award, Finalist, Children's Pre-teen Fiction 2021
  • National Federation of Press Women, 2nd Place Award for Children’s Fiction 2020
  • Delaware Press Association Award, Children’s Fiction 2020
  • American Book Fest, Best Book Awards, Finalist, Children's Fiction 2020
  • Moonbeam Children’s Fiction Award, Silver Medal for Pre-teen Historical/Cultural Fiction 2019
 Fiction Growing Up Growing Up & Facts of Life Health Historical Fiction Literature & Fiction Heartfelt New York
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I just finished this delightful book within a twenty four hour period. I'm honored to say that the author Kate Szegda Is an acquaintance of mine. Mrs. Zegdataught my son-in elementary school. And was one of the best teachers any of my five children were ever less to have. I got to know Kate sagta. We both worked for the same school district. And I was excited when I found out she had written a book. I was Especially happy to learn that Kate's book Was available in audio edition as I suffer from arthritis, in my wrists n neck. LOL Once I started listening I couldn't stop. The story took me back to days at my great-grandmother's. Who was someone that had lived through the first world warand it just made me feel like I was back in her kitchen back on the glider in the back porch out in the yard . It was wonderful. Kate also tells us how things were back then the story of the influenza, the bringing up-to-date of how it compares the things going on in the health world today. It is a fantastic read, and I hope that everybody puts their hands-on a copy. Whether you get a hard cover book, a paper backbook, or the audio book support Kate story because it is wonderful. Thank you, Kate Szaga ❤️

Fantastic read exciting fun informative.

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Coincidentally I listened to two books about this terrible time back to back but thankfully this one wasn’t as gruesome. A very patriotic story told from an ordinary teenage girls point of view. I especially liked that it proved that being united surpasses division at anytime. The narration is of course what you’d expect when listening with virtual voice. Terrible. It’s informal, complete and the story is written well enough to illustrate the actual circumstances experienced during that time.

Good story but audible has to do better

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The story was amazing which is why I put up with the AI narration…. Seriously… use a human next time!!!!

Great story.. horrible narration

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Good story, fast read. i did not like the narration, sounds like a robot.

good read

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I learned specific details about life in small USA towns in 1919, and how the people was reacting with the WW1 and the Spanish Flu

Great history information

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The story was excellent but the AI voice did not recognize certain aspects of speech. Like read and read (past tense). A couple expressions were hard to understand. Otherwise the reading was ok. Recommended for history lesson. I liked the Q & A in the end of the book.

I loved the point of view story from the young girl

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