Up Your Nose
by Seth Fishman; illus. by Isabel Greenberg
Preschool, Primary    Greenwillow    40 pp.   g
6/22    978-0-06-295338-4    $17.99

Colorful, squiggly germs with alarmed cartoon faces swirl all around the three curious children at the center of this useful and entertaining book by the team behind A Hundred Billion Trillion Stars (rev. 1/18) and Power Up (rev. 3/19). In Fishman’s funny, conversational text, a scientist explains to the children that many of the rules they hear from grownups (“Cover your mouth when you cough”; “Don’t eat off the floor”) help keep them safe. The scientist goes on to define germs as microbes and identify the different kinds (bacteria, viruses, protozoa, fungi, helminths); show where they can be found inside and outside the human body; and explain what we can do to protect ourselves from illness. Both the bright, cheerful drawings and the author’s note encourage children to see germs as a natural part of our world. The chatty, sometimes silly text plays off Greenberg’s lively illustrations, which are full of movement and details to pore over. The text mentions the role of vaccines as a line of defense, and COVID-19 is explicitly discussed in the author’s note. A nonthreatening and informative introduction to a topic about which children may have many questions and concerns today.

From the July/August 2022 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.