A parade of the strangest creatures ever made: a review of Germ Stories by Arthur Kornberg Cody Mooneyhan, Managing Editor IT MIGHT BE HARD to imagine Nobel Prize-winning biologist Arthur Kornberg telling bedtime stories, but after reading Germ Stories , this would not be so hard to do. Written in couplets punctuated by whimsical illustrations, Kornberg takes a page from Dr. Seuss to introduce young readers to microbiology. The book has 12 closely related poems beginning with a "Germ Parade," followed by stories about several "little beasties" that cause illnesses ranging from food poisoning to HIV. After each poem, young readers get to see real images of the beasties previously featured. The poems date back more than 50 years to when Kornberg was a young parent. Since those early years of soothing his children to sleep, the poems have persisted as family favorites for decades. In the published version of the work, many of the human characters have been named after his grandchildren, and the poems were updated to reflect the latest scientific discoveries. For instance, in the preface, Kornberg notes how he has changed the ending to the poem about HIV to reflect the fact that the infection can be managed with proper treatment. He also introduced a new poem, " Heliocobacter Pylori ," in light of the relatively recent discovery of the role that this organism plays in stomach ulcers. The work should be commended for trying to achieve the ambitious goal of making microbiology interesting and relevant to young children. For instance, the book has a poem that serves as a great conversation starter about polio—the threat it once was and the medical advances that have nearly eradicated the illness. Another great example is the "Intestinal Menagerie," where Kornberg deftly explains the complex relationships among the "bugs that make vitamins and digest food" and the health of the people in whom they live. <h3>The Intestinal Menagerie</h3> For all of the things that this book does well—and there are many—the book appears to be unclear on exactly what audience it intends to reach: Is the book for children? Is the book for parents? Is the book for both? For instance, the work falls flat when it puts the little beasties under the microscope. The images of the actual organisms are beautiful, but ultimately raise more questions than they answer because the legends are too technical. This leads to a jarring disconnect between the wonderful illustrations and eloquent poetry and the "real life" slide images and their descriptions. The glossary is a weak band-aid attempt to solve this problem, and as a result, it seems to be the editor’s or author’s way of admitting guilt for not being able to fix it properly. Undoubtedly, this glossary is helpful to some, but it is too technical for many children reading on their own, and perhaps, even for some parents. Furthermore, many young children do not know what a glossary is, much less how to navigate one with terms appearing in high school and college texts. Another similar problem has to do with the pronunciation keys. Some children reading on their own would be at a loss regarding how to interpret them. It would have been just as easy to provide pronunciation guidance using letter and word combinations that would be more familiar to young readers. The keys, as published, probably are not a problem for parents, but they are yet another aspect of the book that makes readers wonder about who is supposed to do the reading. In the end, the rhymes and illustrations are reminiscent of Dr. Seuss, but the book’s overall execution does not hold up to any work of that master storyteller. Nevertheless, Germ Stories is a fine addition to any home or elementary school library simply because the poetry is good enough to overcome the book’s distractingly technical fluff. <h3>View larger version</h3> (100K): In this window In a new window Figure 1. <h3>FOOTNOTES</h3> The opinions expressed in editorials, essays, letters to the editor, and other articles comprising the Up Front section are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of FASEB or its constituent societies . The FASEB Journal welcomes all points of view and many voices. We look forward to hearing these in the form of op-ed pieces and/or letters from its readers addressed to journals@faseb.org .

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