Do Not Lick This Book

Starred review from May 1, 2018
Why not? Because "IT'S FULL OF GERMS."Of course, Ben-Barak rightly notes, so is everything else--from your socks to the top of Mount Everest. Just to demonstrate, he invites readers to undertake an exploratory adventure (only partly imaginary): First touch a certain seemingly blank spot on the page to pick up a microbe named Min, then in turn touch teeth, shirt, and navel to pick up Rae, Dennis, and Jake. In the process, readers watch crews of other microbes digging cavities ("Hey kid, brush your teeth less"), spreading "lovely filth," and chowing down on huge rafts of dead skin. For the illustrations, Frost places dialogue balloons and small googly-eyed cartoon blobs of diverse shape and color onto Rundgren's photographs, taken using a scanning electron microscope, of the fantastically rugged surfaces of seemingly smooth paper, a tooth, textile fibers, and the jumbled crevasses in a belly button. The tour concludes with more formal introductions and profiles for Min and the others: E. coli, Streptococcus, Aspergillus niger, and Corynebacteria. "Where will you take Min tomorrow?" the author asks teasingly. Maybe the nearest bar of soap.Science at its best: informative and gross. (Informational picture book. 6-9)

COPYRIGHT(2018) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

May 15, 2018
Grades K-3 Microbiologist Ben-Barak and YouTuber Frost join forces to introduce the concept of microbes. After they discuss size (3,422,167, give or take a few million, can fit on a dot), an E. coli named Min leads readers on a tour of four habitats: a sheet of paper, a tooth surface, a shirt, and a belly button. As Min travels from place to place, she picks up other creatures along the way, including Rae, a streptococcus; Dennis, a fungus; and Jake, a corynebacterium. Frost's colorful, cartoon-style art adds humor to the text, especially when the characters are superimposed on actual electron micrographs. Each germ engages in banter ( Help yourselves to a delicious chunk of dead skin ), and textual directions ( Touch the circle with your finger to pick her up ) will engage young listeners. Ben-Barak avoids complex terms and discussion of cell structure, reproduction, and disease that might confuse or frighten the intended audience, but an afterword identifies each microbe and offers additional information. This friendly introduction to the microscopic world is appropriate even for the squeamish.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)