Enjoy Your Cells

  • Fran Balkwill &
  • Mic Rolph
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, $8.95, 32pp, paperback ISBN 0-87969-584-6, 2001 | ISBN: 0-87969-584-6

Baa!

  • Cynthia Pratt Nicolson &
  • Rose Cowles
Kids Can Press; $6.95, 40pp, paperback ISBN 1-55074-886-6, 2001 | ISBN: 1-55074-886-6

Germ Zappers

  • Fran Balkwill &
  • Mic Rolph
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press; $8.95, 32pp, paperback ISBN 0-87969-598-6, 2001 | ISBN: 0-87969-598-6

If recent terrorist attacks generated anxiety in adults, then they likely terrified most children. For parents anxious to explain the “bio” in bio-terrorism, a book written by Professor Fran Balkwill and beautifully illustrated by Mic Rolph might provide some help—at least with the basics. Germ Zappers guides children of ages 7 and upwards through a voyage among psychedelic cyto-invaders. But what should be a whistle-stop tour gets distracted by a little too much sightseeing, with its attempts to explain defense and immune responses—a challenge even at graduate level. The coverage of microorganisms is sound, although the designation of bacteria as “friends” and viruses as “loathsome enemies” might encourage kids to use this as a justification to avoid washing—let's hope not.

The book is ambitious in its scope and will likely appeal only to the brightest of children, despite its attempt to demonstrate how to pronounce those difficult science words (e.g., “special chemicals called cytokines (sigh-toe-kines)”). I was left wondering whether the target age group (the 7's rather than the “upwards”) really need to know the names of every lymphocyte. Can scientists such as Balkwill, who is also professor of cancer biology at St. Bartholomew's Hospital and Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry (London), remove themselves sufficiently from their specialism to write at this level? However, another of her books in the same series assuaged my concerns. Enjoy Your Cells is fun and fascinating. The phonetics are less evident and the stories more convincing, although the author still insists on informing children about new-tro-fils and mack-row-fages. This is the sort of children's book that will encourage the reader to find out more.

“The most interesting book you'll ever read about genes and cloning” is how the third of the stocking fillers is billed. But Baa!, written by Cynthia Pratt Nicolson, finds it hard to live up to its extravagant boast. Baa! does explain genetics and cloning with clarity, using exciting real-life stories to bring the topic to life for young readers: the capture of the Unabomber, links between the genetic disorder porphyria and vampires, and the potential benefits and threats from widespread pre-implantation genetic testing are all used as examples. However, the illustrations—such an important component of a publication targeting ages 9–14—are dowdy. The characters also fail to reflect the diversity of the human gene pool: basketball player Michael Jordan is cited as an example of how both genes and dedication can determine success, but other characters of color are conspicuously absent. And where are the women scientists? One other point of contention ... if the world's first cloned mice were produced in Hawaii, the first cloned calf in Texas, and Blacksburg, Virginia is the “cloned pig capital of the world”, why no mention of Edinburgh, birthplace of Dolly the Sheep, the doyenne of clones, and presumably the impetus for the book's title?