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2015 Nominee

Pandemic Survival: It’s Why You’re Alive

Written by Ann Love and Jane Drake.
Published in 2013 by Tundra.

The Black Death. Yellow Fever. Smallpox. History is full of gruesome pandemics, and surviving those pandemics has shaped our society and way of life. Every person today is alive because of an ancestor who survived–and surviving our current and future pandemics, like SARS, AIDS, bird flu or a new and unknown disease, will determine our future. Pandemic Survival presents in-depth information about past and current illnesses; the evolution of medicine and its pioneers; cures and treatments; strange rituals and superstitions; and what we’re doing to prevent future pandemics. Full of delightfully gross details about symptoms and fascinating facts about bizarre superstitious behaviors, Pandemic Survival is sure to interest even the most squeamish of readers.

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5 thoughts on “Pandemic Survival: It’s Why You’re Alive

  1. nicholas sheran comuinty school

    it was a really good book. it told me about some cool but deadly diseases.
    I thought it was amazing. There are true story’s and false story’s. try to read all about it.

  2. Hillhurst

    Pandemic Survival

    I am interested in medicine, so the opinions expressed in this review may vary. Pandemic Survival is a book about plagues. A lot of past and modern pandemics. It gave facts on many famous ones, including the Spanish flu, Smallpox, and Black Death, etc., and told us about if these plagues hadn’t happened the way they had, that we might not be alive now. Antibodies help us to resist these diseases, if they recur.
    I would recommend Pandemic Survival to schools, even though it has it’s ups and downs. Let’s start with cons. Halfway through the book, there was a small section on zoonotic diseases, or diseases that could spread from animals to humans, like cowpox to smallpox. I was very interested in them. After that section, the book never talked about zoonotic diseases again. It didn’t even say how diseases evolved to be zoonotic. I was disappointed. Another con was that it mainly talked about the symptoms, statistics, and the infected areas, yet only a few diseases had a explanation for the cute. I understand that it may be hard to find information on diseases from many centuries ago.
    Some of the many pros of this book include: a detailed description of the pandemic, how it spread, the health care at the time, and lots of statistics. If anyone is doing a research project on a plague, this is the book to do it. Smallpox, Bubonic Plague, Spanish Flu, HIV / AIDS, you name it, the book has it, along with how the general public then handled the situation. Also, most of the diseases had some puns or humor in them, such as when St. Anthony’s fire made victims dance sometimes, across countries. The book is very engaging, and that is crucial to get young learners reading the whole book, and retain the memory.
    I would certainly recommend this book to anyone looking for a book about major diseases. I would also reccomend this book to school boards to use this as a textbook. Overall, I believe the pros outweigh the cons, and I would like it if the authors wrote a series about their favourite plague.

  3. Hillhurst School

    Book review of:
    Bones Never Lie
    How Forensics Helps Solve History’s Mysteries
    Bones Never Lie is a book about forensics- the science part of crime-scene investigation. A few popular questions in history are presented-what was the French prisoner The Man In The Iron mask’s real identity? How did Thailand’s King Rama VIII die? Was it murder, or suicide? These mysteries and a few others are presented and examined closely. The author presents clues that eradicate possibilities, and present others.
    I think that Bones Never Lie is a great read without being too long. Even though the book is short, it provides lots of information and is great to read if you’re a bit short on time, as it is only 145 pages long. The forensics part of the book shows methods that scientists use to solve what happened a long time ago. These things, such as carbon dating, allow new theories to be developed or old theories not considered as possibilities anymore.
    There is lots of detail and the facts are checked and up-to-date, with a timeline at the beginning of the royal people in the book so you can see dates, such as the birth and death of Napoleon (1769 to 1821). The book always has a new fact or setting so it never gets boring. To add to the great detail and consistent interest, there are pictures and side information to add to the main theme of that chapter.
    My conclusion is that Bones Never Lie is an awesome book and I highly recommend it.
    Victor Hillhurst School

  4. Hillhurst School

    Pandemic Survival is a great book, with humor, not too complex words, tons of information, history, and also ‘diary entries’, which are like italicized paragraphs from the perspective of a random person, imaginary character, or an author of the book. I thought this was a really good book, but I’m not sure it gripped me with fear, though maybe it gripped me with sudden interest.

    So as I said in the first paragraph, I do believe it was a good book, and I prefer fiction as opposed to non-fiction, so I got my nose stuck inside the book because it is the best non-fiction I’ve read in my life of ten years and a bit. Non-fiction in my opinion are more bland and have less creativity, but Jane Drake and Ann Love put a creative spin on it, by which I mean the book.
    The pictures caught and bypassed me, because I swear I’ve seen that type of drawing before, just never known the illustrator’s name. His name is Bill (or William) Slavin, and he had some pretty funny pictures including the one where the person wearing a red and white checkered handkerchief and a half tuxedo with a green blanket over his legs was eating a rat. I REALLY hope that cure is different now, or at least there is an alternate cure.

    In conclusion, the things I liked about Pandemic Survival were the pictures, the non-fictioness, the reality, and the pictures. That is why I recommend this RMBA book for you to read.


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