Checkups, Shots, and Robots
True Stories Behind How Doctors Treat Us
-
- $11.99
-
- $11.99
Publisher Description
Why do I have to get a checkup? My head hurts—make it better! Kids can explore the science and history behind common medical practices and procedures and learn about health problems, treatments, and medical breakthroughs in this funny and educational graphic-format nonfiction book.
Common childhood illnesses and injuries and the methods to cure or treat them can lead to questions. This book offers answers, showing how people learned how to understand and care for the human body, from ancient times to the present day. Young readers will travel back in time—sometimes thousands of years—to cultures all over the globe to learn how and why medical breakthroughs occurred. They’ll meet key people from medical history along the way, including early surgeons working without anesthesia and grave robbers seeking knowledge of human anatomy. The science behind antibiotics and how stitches work are two of many topics in this fascinating book, which includes projects and activities for both the classroom and home.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rickert (Pizza, Pickles, and Apple Pie) offers an antidote to skepticism and misinformation surrounding medical science in this high-energy, occasionally irreverent comics-style work. Sections tracing the history of well visits, diseases and infections, vaccines, pain relief, and surgery are framed by scenes in an intersectionally diverse contemporary middle school where students josh and support one another through various health issues and anxieties ("Why do I need a flu shot? Can't I just live in a coating of hand sanitizer?"). Influential figures are also highlighted throughout, among them prehistoric mothers ("What she knew had been passed down from previous generations, and she knew a lot"); the medieval women of Salerno, who pioneered gynecology; and Rebecca Lee Crumpler, a Black 19th-century doctor who dedicated herself to the care of formerly enslaved people. The author doesn't shy away from depicting incidents of questionable or alarming medical ethics, bias, and unintended consequences, particularly involving the care of people of color. Still, readers will come away feeling that, when it comes to medical innovation, they're standing on the shoulders of giants. Lively back matter includes how Rickert rendered historical figures and instructions on researching and creating one's own comic. Ages 8–12. +
