Kids’ Microbiology Book Review: Germ Stories

I was going through some kids’ books today and found quite a few that I thought were wonderful and thought – well – I should post about some of them.  So that is what I am going to do.

The first I want to write about is Germ Stories by Arthur Kornberg with Illustrations by Adam Alaniz and Photos by Roberto Kolter.

I used to read it to my daughter all the time (she is two years older than my son) and then sometimes, when she was older, she would read it to my son.  A few things I like about this book:

1. It is not all about pathogens – there are sections on yeast, penicillin, gut microbes and Myxococcus (although it is miswritten as Myxobacterium). 
2. Everything is done as poetry / songs.  Some are cheesy, but my kids liked them.
3. Each section on a different microbes has a little poem/song, a drawing, and a picture or two as well as a few mini facts (or I guess, micro facts). 
4. The material is a bit scary / gross at times but not too over the top.

I added this book to a collection I am making via Amazon on “Microbiology Books for Kids“.  I will write about some of the other ones at another time.

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UPDATE – Wanted other suggestions for good kids’ microbiology themed books …

Author: Jonathan Eisen

I am an evolutionary biologist and a Professor at U. C. Davis. (see my lab site here). My research focuses on the origin of novelty (how new processes and functions originate). To study this I focus on sequencing and analyzing genomes of organisms, especially microbes and using phylogenomic analysis View all posts by Jonathan Eisen