Optimistic, informative, and inspiring for future scientists.
Explains how scientists study—and learn how to predict and counter—disease outbreaks.
In six parts, Cherrix frames six different outbreaks as compelling mysteries to be solved. “The Case of the No-Name Virus” takes readers to the U.S. Southwest of the 1990s, where observations by dendrochronologists who learned from A:shiwi people and medical data from the Korean War enable an “elite corps of epidemiologists at the CDC” to crack the case and prevent further spread of the hantavirus. Next, readers travel back to the filthy London of the mid-1800s to follow John Snow as he tracks a cholera outbreak to its source, pioneering techniques that are still used today. After giving historical background on the 1918 flu, the text follows scientists over many subsequent decades as they try to learn enough about the outbreak to prevent such a pandemic from happening again. The next section covers the globally coordinated effort (by both scientists and laypeople) to defeat the “ancient enemy” smallpox. Community involvement takes center stage in the documentation of the role activists played in raising awareness and even shaping drug trials during the HIV/AIDS outbreak of the 1980s and ’90s. The final section chronicles how the unprecedentedly fast development of the Covid-19 vaccine came about thanks to years of earlier work. The straightforward language (including impressive scientific explanations) and human-focused narrative structure make for a readable book, bolstered by sidebars and extensive backmatter for credibility.
Optimistic, informative, and inspiring for future scientists. (bibliography, endnotes, index) (Nonfiction. 10-18)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9780063069541
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Brief yet inspirational, this story will galvanize youth to use their voices for change.
Testa’s connection to and respect for nature compelled her to begin championing animal causes at the age of 10, and this desire to have an impact later propelled her to dedicate her life to fighting plastic pollution. Starting with the history of plastic and how it’s produced, Testa acknowledges the benefits of plastics for humanity but also the many ways it harms our planet. Instead of relying on recycling—which is both insufficient and ineffective—she urges readers to follow two additional R’s: “refuse” and “raise awareness.” Readers are encouraged to do their part, starting with small things like refusing to use plastic straws and water bottles and eventually working up to using their voices to influence business and policy change. In the process, she highlights other youth advocates working toward the same cause. Short chapters include personal examples, such as observations of plastic pollution in Mauritius, her maternal grandparents’ birthplace. Testa makes her case not only against plastic pollution, but also for the work she’s done, resulting in something of a college-admissions–essay tone. Nevertheless, the first-person accounts paired with science will have an impact on readers. Unfortunately, no sources are cited and the lack of backmatter is a missed opportunity.
Brief yet inspirational, this story will galvanize youth to use their voices for change. (Nonfiction. 12-18)Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-22333-8
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
Necessary for every library, personal or otherwise.
As fresh and funny as ever, a classic compendium of physics in action gets a light but needed makeover.
Most of the “Things” here are still working the way they did back in 1988, 1998, and 2004, when the original and the revised editions dropped—but along with sporting new and spruced-up colors, some of the content, notably the section dubbed “The Digital Domain,” has been brought into the 21st century. Thus, the space shuttle and the VCR are no more, the workings of the telephone have been replaced by those of smartphones and telephone networks, and the jump jet has given way to the quadcopter and other types of drones. But the details that made the earlier editions delightful as well as edifying remain. In the illustrations, flights of tiny angels move the “first whoopee cushion” into place, discombobulated woolly mammoths get caught up in silly side business while helping to demonstrate scientific principles, and best of all, Macaulay’s brilliantly designed, engagingly informal diagrams and cutaways bring within the grasp of even casual viewers a greater understanding of the technological wonders of both past and present.
Necessary for every library, personal or otherwise. (index) (Reference. 11-15)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-544-82438-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
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