Bugged: How Insects Changed History - Softcover

Albee, Sarah

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802734227 ISBN 13: 9780802734228

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens, 2014

Synopsis

There are about ten quintillion insects in the world-and some of them have affected human history in tremendous ways! For as long as humans have been on earth, we've co-existed with insects . . . for better or for worse. Once you begin to look at world history through fly-specked glasses, you begin to see the mark of these minute life forms at every turn. Beneficial bugs have built empires. Bad bugs have toppled them. Bugged is not your everyday history book. From the author and illustrator team behind kid-favorite Poop Happened! A History of the World from the Bottom Up, this combination of world history, social history, natural science, epidemiology, public health, conservation, and microbiology is told with fun and informative graphics and in an irreverent voice, making this one fun-to-read book.

About this title

About the Author

SARAH ALBEE is the author of Poop Happened! A History of the World from the Bottom Up and dozens of books for young readers, three of which have been New York Times bestsellers. She lives in Connecticut with her husband, three kids and dog. She blogs about offbeat history topics at sarahalbeebooks.com/blog.

ROBERT LEIGHTON is the illustrator of Poop Happened! A History of the World from the Bottom Up and What's Going on Down There?, as well as a puzzle-writer and New Yorker cartoonist. He lives in New York City.

Reviews

From the author and illustrator of Poop Happened! (2010) comes a compendium of facts about insects and their role in shaping civilization. Malaria, yellow fever, typhus, and the plague have all played pivotal roles in history—halting colonization and travel, felling armies, and even bringing entire empires to their bubo-covered knees—and all of them are transmitted by bugs. Albee opens with the many ways insects are helpful to humans (as a source of food, in medical research), but those niceties belie the grossness that follows. Starting with evidence of insect-borne diseases in the Bible and ending with contemporary research and efforts to curb major epidemics, Albee follows a mostly chronological order, regularly interrupted by sidebars with fascinating facts about individual insects, scientists and policy makers, medical practices and discoveries, and infectious diseases. Thankfully, Leighton’s mostly cartoon illustrations mean the visuals aren’t scarily gross. Though there are a few missteps—a warning about eating bugs found in the yard should really come before the recipe for chocolate-covered crickets—this engrossing volume is jam-packed with enticingly gruesome world history. Grades 5-8. --Sarah Hunter

Edition details

• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802734227
• ISBN 13: 9780802734228
• Binding: Paperback
• Illustrator: Leighton Robert
• Number of pages: 176