by Kate Messner
Illustrated by Falynn Kosch
5 stars
An interesting and informative read centered around various diseases and plagues throughout human history. This is the first I’ve read in the History Smashers series and absolutely love the format. The book focuses on smashing various myths and misinformation surrounding disease, pandemics, and vaccines.
The text is broken up by fun (and often humorous) illustrations, black-and-white photographs, and breakout stories in a comic-style format. Messner also works in her own humor in the explanations, which makes for a fun read.
This book is packed with information but in a way that is easy to manage. I found the stories fascinating and really enjoyed learning from this book. Messner covers various diseases such as bubonic plague, smallpox, yellow fever, malaria, cholera, tuberculosis, polio, Ebola, HIV/AIDS, and COVID 19. There is also a chapter on the future of pandemics, giving information on how outbreaks and pandemics have changed due to climate change and antibiotic resistance.
It also works in relevant information about fake news, skewed research studies, the safety of vaccines, racism and economic disparities related to outbreaks, and how to prevent the spread of viruses and bacteria. Throughout Messner highlights Health Care Heroes, many of whom have been overlooked in history, specifically women and people of color such as Dr. Patricia Webb’s and Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe’s roles leading to the discovery of the Ebola virus.
The backmatter contains various resources including recommended materials for learning more, a glossary of terms, a selected bibliography of resources used, and an index.
Fascinating, fun, and well worth the read. A great non-fiction resource for engaged learning. Will definitely be reading more History Smashers books.