White House Secrets are Not a New Thing!

 

White House Secrets: Medical Lies and Cover-Ups (Medical Fiascoes) 

by Gail Jarrow 

288 pages; ages 10-17

Calkins Creek, 2025

Given all the political goings-on this year, this seems like a perfect time for a book about White House secrets to hit the shelves. And a perfect time to reflect on the medical fiascoes that have occurred during past presidencies. With that in mind, let’s head up to Capitol Hill – or at least open the cover of the book and dive in.

Did you know that eight US presidents died in office? And that more than a third of our presidents became seriously ill during their term in office? “Yet,” writes Gail Jarrow, “Americans were deliberately kept in the dark… Lies were told. Cover-ups were orchestrated.”

Gail writes from the position that Americans have a right to know whether their elected leader is healthy enough to perform the duties of his office. But sometimes family members hide health problems. Sometimes it’s presidential aides hiding their leader’s infirmities. And sometimes it’s the president himself – whether out of self-preservation or denial.

When James Garfield died of an infected gunshot wound, his vice president, Chester Arthur took over. Unfortunately, he had a kidney disease that resulted in fatigue, among other issues. Meanwhile, he staged photo opportunities to show himself as a hale and hardy outdoorsman, writes Gail.

Gail also examines the presidencies of Grover Cleveland, Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, FDR, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Regan, and Joe Biden. The first page of each chapter includes fast facts: dates elected, biographical information, and their term in office. Within the chapter, Gail discusses the politics surrounding their presidencies, their health issues, legal and political ramifications, and what happens when a president is incapable of making decisions. 

I particularly liked the last chapter, in which Gail talks about the influence of a president on the American people, and reasons why they hid their health problems. “Grover Cleveland feared his cancer diagnosis would trigger a financial crisis,” she notes. Others have kept serious illnesses secret to “maintain power and prevent the vice president from taking over.”

The thing is, Gail points out, that there is no law that requires a candidate or sitting president to take a physical or cognitive test to prove that they are capable of performing the duties of the office. And asking for transparency about a president’s health raises a lot of questions. For example, is the president’s right to privacy more important than the public’s right to know medical details? Should certain medical conditions be disqualifying?

This book is a great resource for teachers and school libraries, offering jumping-off point for discussions and debates about history, politics, health, and ethics. I give it a rating of 5 stethoscopes. 

The Medical Fiascoes series includes Blood and Germs, which follows the advances in medicine during the Civil War and American Murderer about the parasite that haunted the south, which I reviewed here.

Thanks for dropping by today. On Monday we'll be hanging out at Marvelous Middle Grade Monday with other  bloggers. It's over at Greg Pattridge's blog, Always in the Middle, so hop over to see what other people are reading. Review copy provided by the publisher.

Space Medicine and Exploration

 

 I have a couple books today for kids who love space and might want to be an astronaut or astronomer. The first is all about keeping healthy in space.

 

Spacecare: A Kid's Guide to Surviving Space
by Jennifer Swanson
80 pages; ages 8-12
‎Mayo Clinic Press Kids, 2023

Living in space is not like living on Earth, writes Jennifer Swanson. It’s dark and cold. Or sunny and hot. And then there’s the whole lack of gravity thing, which can affect our earth-adapted body in so many ways. Even if you’re safely aboard the International Space Station, which has atmospheric pressure and temperature regulation, your body will feel the effects of microgravity, radiation, and all other sorts of space phenomena.

Space can affect our eyes, our heart, our brain, and our bones. It affects our muscles, our sense of balance, and our sleep cycle. In this book, Jen takes a close look at how living in space puts new stresses on our body, and how space doctors help astronauts adapt to their new environment. Their research doesn’t stop when astronauts return to earth – they follow the health of returned space voyagers to see what (if any) long term effects there are from space travel. 

Questions from kids are sprinkled throughout the book, and answered by astronaut Megan McArthur. They ask things like: do cuts take longer to heal in space? and what happens when you sneeze? There are plenty of “Mayo Medi-facts” boxes throughout the book that explain health issues, and a full spread showing what a well-stocked first aid kit should contain (for Earthlings on their home planet). And there are sidebars about space technology, from space suits to growing food in space. Plus space squid!

This book was a lot of fun, so I had to ask Jen Two Questions:

Me:  It feels like you’ve been writing about space and astronauts for a long time. What is it about space travel and exploration that captures your imagination so much?

Jen: This is only my second book about astronauts. But I've done other space books and I have a couple more in the works. What I love so much about exploration in general, whether it be in space or under the ocean, is the amazing ingenuity of the humans who make this possible. I mean, wow, building a place that keeps humans alive in an environment that is so hugely hostile to them take some really cool thinking and awesome engineering. Using that place to do science to investigate, explore, and solve questions about our place in the universe? Even better!

Me: If you had a chance to go to the International Space Station, would you? And what would you want to study?

Jen: Actually, I'm not sure. I'm not great in confined spaces... I'd much rather write about the cool science and engineering being done to get humans to space and also what they do up there. If I did go, I'd love to study more about the effects of radiation on humans. That fascinates me.

Jen Swanson is a member of #STEAMTeam2023. You can find out more about her at her website, www.JenniferSwansonBooks.com. She is also the creator and co-host of Solve It! for Kids podcast www.solveitforkids.com

Thank you, Jen. Now let’s check out another book for space-bound teens.

 

The Big Backyard: The Solar System beyond Pluto
by Ron Miller
104 pages; ages 13-up
Twenty-First Century Books , 2023

If you could travel to the farthest reaches of our solar system what would you find? It’s a cold, dark world out there, filled with comets, floating icebergs, strange dancing particles, and other stuff left over from the formation of our solar system. Author, Ron Miller starts with the birth of our solar system some 5 billion years ago, and the formation of planets.

Then we go on a planet hunt (with some historical sky-watchers), explore the Kuiper belt, and then head on beyond Pluto. Just how far does the sun’s light reach? And what’s between our solar system and those distant stars? “The nearest stars,” he says, “are so far away that their light takes more than four years to reach Earth.” Even from that distance they have an effect on our solar system, and he shows how modern researchers study the distant sky – our “big backyard” he calls it.

Thanks for dropping by today. On Monday we'll be hanging out at Marvelous Middle Grade Monday with other  bloggers. It's over at Greg Pattridge's blog, Always in the Middle, so hop over to see what other people are reading. Review copies provided by the publishers.

Women Find the Cure!

March is Women’s History Month and today I’m reviewing books that highlight the contributions of women in STEM. I paired these books because they both deal with medical discoveries that were vital to understanding the COVID-19 pandemic.

theme: women’s history, medicine, nonfiction

Never Give Up: Dr. Kati Karikó and the Race for the Future of Vaccines 

by Debbie Dadey; illus. by Juliana Oakley 

40 pages; ages 5-10

‎Millbrook Press, 2023  

By the time the morning sun shone on the reed roof of Kati’s one-room home in Hungary, she had already fed the chickens, collected eggs, and been chased by a rooster.

Kati learned about animals at home – but at school she learned about science. And when the teacher showed the class how to use a microscope to see cells, Katie was hooked. She wanted to be a scientist! She attends science camps, competes in the Science Olympics, conducts research in mRNA, and begins asking whether (and how) mRNA might be used to help fight disease. Her experiments fail, and people question whether her idea is going anywhere. But Dr. Kati doesn’t give up and eventually has a breakthrough that leads to…

• The founding of Moderna
• A job at BioNTech
• And the work that went into creating the COVID vaccine

What I like about this book: it is timely! It shows the additional hurdles women in STEM fields face in their research. And, we learn that Dr. Kati isn’t finished. Now she wants to find out if mRNA can cure or prevent other diseases! Back matter includes timeline of Kati’s life, steps to making a vaccine, glossary, source notes, and suggestions for further study.

June Almeida, Virus Detective!: The Woman Who Discovered the First Human Coronavirus 

by Suzanne Slade; illus. by Elisa Paganelli 

40 pages; ages 6-9

Sleeping Bear Press, 2021

June’s favorite days were school days.

She couldn’t wait to get to class – especially science, which she loved. But with no savings, she had to get a job instead of attend college. So she applied to work at a hospital, where she used a microscope to examine cells from sick people.

Using an electron microscope, she created pictures of viruses and their antibodies. One of those viruses looked like a blob with tiny dots circling it like a crown – she had discovered coronavirus.

Back matter includes more biographical information about June, and some photos of her working with an electron microscope, as well as a timeline of her life. Turns out that discovery of human coronavirus was published in 1967! Seems like ancient history, and yet so important to recent medical science.

Beyond the Books:

Do you know any women who are doctors or are doing research in medicine? 

If you could find a cure for a disease, what would you cure? 

Learn more about Dr. Kati Karikó. Here’s one article

Find out more about June Almeida. Here’s an article.

Today we’re joining Perfect Picture Book Friday. It’s a wonderful gathering where bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's website. 

Because these books appeal to older readers as well, we’ll be over at Marvelous Middle Grade Monday, too. That happens at Greg Pattridge's blog, Always in the Middle, so hop over to see what other people are reading. Review copies provided by the publishers.

Vampire Worms! The perfect Halloween reading

Who needs a scary Halloween book about zombies when there are true stories that will make your skin crawl and give you the heebie-jeebies? 

American Murderer is one such book. Subtitled “The parasite that haunted the south,” it’s the most recent in Gail Jarrow’s Medical Fiascoes series. Just released last month from Calkins Creek, it's the perfect scary read for kids 10 and older. 

The first book in the series, Blood and Germs follows the advances in medicine during the Civil War. Twice as many men died from microbes and parasites as were killed by battles. While it begins as a medical fiasco, the war ended with advancements in surgical techniques and medical care that set the bar for decades. 

In the second book, Ambushed! The Assassination Plot Against President Garfield, Jarrow details the medical mistakes made in the aftermath of Garfield’s assassination. A series of faulty diagnoses and outdated treatments eventually led to the president’s demise.

American Murderer hits closer to home – the backyards and school yards of the American south. It focuses on microscopic worms living in the soil. Invisible vampires that enter your body through your bare feet, travel to your intestines, and stay there for years sucking your blood and draining you of energy. 

Yes, there are gory photos of the victims! 

Yes, there are gross diagrams and photos of the vampiric worms! 

But mostly it’s a story about the scientist who discovered the worm and played a role in educating the public on treatments and eradication: Charles Wardell Stile. As a boy, Charles was a curious naturalist. Like other boys in the second half of the 1800s, he collected specimens for his bedroom nature museum. I enjoyed reading about the time he decided to boil the flesh off a dead cat so he could add the skeleton to his museum – a time-honored way of cleaning the bones… as long as you remember to take the pot off the stove before it burns into a stinky mess (and I say this from experience).

Separating people’s bare feet from the microscopic worms sounds easy: have people wear shoes, and provide outhouses that don’t leak. But in the late 1800s and early 1900s, that was easier said than done. For one thing, shoes cost money. For another, people wondered who were those know-it-all Yankees coming down to tell them how to live? Fortunately, there was medical treatment – if doctors could reach the people who needed it most. 

These days, there is very little risk of getting hookworm disease in the United States, due in large part to the advances in sanitation and waste control. Unfortunately, according to new research, we are not rid of that blood-sucking vampire worm just yet…

You can find out more about Gail Jarrow and her books at her website, www.gailjarrow.com. Thanks for dropping by today. On Monday we'll be hanging out at Marvelous Middle Grade Monday with other  bloggers. It's over at Greg Pattridge's blog, Always in the Middle, so hop over to see what other people are reading. Review copy provided by the publisher.

And remember to wear your shoes when you head out on Halloween night…. 

STEM girls never give up!

 

Tu Youyou's Discovery: Finding a Cure for Malaria 

by Songju Ma Daemicke; illus. by Lin 

‎32 pages; ages 4-9

Albert Whitman & Company, 2021

theme: discovery, biography, women

 In 1969, people all across the world were sick.

Malaria was spreading, and was resistant to known treatments. Chloroquine, a Western malaria medicine, wasn’t working, and Tu Youyou wanted to help find a cure. So she studied traditional Chinese medicine books and traveled to provinces where malaria had spread. After hearing about one of the plants used to treat fevers, Youyou dug up a few plants and took them back to her lab. Her team chopped and soaked and boiled and filtered and tested and … it didn’t work.

That didn’t stop them. They tried other plants, and other ways of preparing the medicines. It took nearly 200 tries to find something that worked!

What I like about this book: This story reflects what so much of science is: trial, error, more study, new experiments, and most of all Never Giving Up. I like the back matter, where there is a timeline of Tu Youyou’s life up through 2015 when she received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for her work. And there’s an explanation of the scientific process.

Beyond the Books:

Learn more about Tu Youyou and her search for a malaria cure. You can read about her here and also watch this video.

Be an herbologist! You can grow some medicinal plants in a window box or in your garden. Mint and chamomile are two plants that are used to help settle upset tummies. Remember when Peter Rabbit drank chamomile tea?

Today we're joining Perfect Picture Book Friday, an event where bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's website. Review copy provided by the author, Songju Ma Daemicke. She’ll join us next month with a guest post. You can visit her website here.

Saving Lives of "Blue Babies"

Breakthrough! How Three People Saved “Blue Babies” and Changed Medicine Forever
by Jim Murphy
144 pages; ages 10 & up
Clarion Books, 2015

If you have a young reader who loves mysteries, technology, invention, science  - a kid who thinks that someday she will want to be a doctor, put this book in her hands! Or his hands.

Author Jim Murphy tells the story of one of the first successful heart operations ever performed. It's about the medical breakthrough that not only saved the lives of tens of thousands of children but also opened the way for future heart surgeries.

And it took place in 1944. An unlikely team performed this high-risk surgery: surgeon Dr. Alfred Blalock; pediatric physician Dr. Helen Taussig; and African-American lab assistant Vivien Thomas. Blalock received the fame, but it was Thomas who developed and perfected the surgical technique to repair the hearts of children born with "blue baby" syndrome. In fact, he was the only person who had ever carried out the surgery successfully on a research animal.

Most of the people working at Johns Hopkins had no idea of Thomas's genius - many of them thought he was a janitor. Indeed, during that time of segregation, he was often treated as such. In one instance the director refused to order equipment that Thomas needed to conduct research. And yet, without his guidance, Blalock would not have been able to do the surgery.

Had history gone in a different direction, Thomas might have attended medical school. But the depression swallowed his meager savings. Desperate for a job, he landed in Blalock's lab. Fortunately, Blalock was looking for an assistant who could learn quickly and even suggest avenues for investigation. Often, Thomas would have to invent the tools he and Blalock would use in their surgeries.

Murphy touches on many topics as he tells this story, including the debate on using animals in medical research, how women and blacks were treated in the medical/research field, and the role of innovation in developing technology. But mostly, he tells a compelling story.

Today's review is part of the STEM Friday roundup. Drop by STEM Friday blog for more science books and resources. On Monday we're joining the folks at Nonfiction Monday. Review copy provided by the publisher.
 

Cool Robots

Cool Robots (series)

by Kathryn Clay, Erika L. Shores

24 pages; ages 4-7

Capstone, 2015

Got a robot-crazy kid? Then this just might be the perfect collection of books for her (or him). The Cool Robot series looks at robots used on earth, in space, and underwater.

 Animal Robots

Some engineers get their robot-inspiration from animals. For example, fins and fish tails might be the perfect thing to help steer an underwater robot. Some animal-robots are toys, while others are working bots, like a robotic fish that searches for pollution in the ocean.

Robots in Space

You already know one robot that works in space: the Mars rover "Curiosity". But did you know that astronauts use robotic gloves to help them grip tools better? And all those unmanned probes flying though space to Mercury, Pluto, and beyond – they are robots, too. Soon there might even be a robotic astronaut.

 

Robots on the Job

If you’ve watched car ads, you’ve seen factory robots. There are even restaurant robots that make sushi. But did you know there are robots that work in hospitals?

Tiny Robots

Remember that science fiction book where people are shrunk and sent inside the human body in a tiny submarine? We’re not there yet, but scientists are working on a pill-sized robot that can be swallowed and will take pictures inside the human body. They’re also working on nanobots – robots too tiny to see. Someday nanobots might be used to fight disease.

Today is STEM Friday. Head over to the STEM Friday blog to see what other bloggers are reviewing. Review copies provided by publisher.