The Great Fire (children's novel) by the angry citizens of Chicago. Before the great fire that devastated it, Chicago was known as the Queen City of the West and the Gem of the Prairie. Now, it was nothing but dust. Reviewer Erin Whalen described the novel as having "vivid description" that "makes it easy for students to imagine being at the event and to feel what the victims of the fire went through." Other critics described the novel as a book that sparks excitement and interest in the fire that occurred in Chicago. The novel is also described as being adventurous and hard to put
The Great Fire (novel) The Great Fire (novel) The Great Fire (2003) is a novel by the Australian author Shirley Hazzard. It won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction and a Miles Franklin literary award (2004). The novel was Hazzard's first since "The Transit of Venus", published in 1980. The novel commences in Japan in 1947, and subsequently takes in Hong Kong, England and New Zealand. Written in the third-person narrative, the novel principally follows its protagonist, the decorated British war veteran Aldred Leith, who is travelling through post-war Asia to write a book. At times the narrator follows Peter Exley, an Australian