It's Monday! What are you reading?

I'm going to confess right here:  I'm not much of a nonfiction history reader.  I'll read a biography or historical fiction now and then, but that's about as close as I get.  

I made an exception last night.  I'm still processing books for the library, and this one came up in the pile.  

They say timing is everything, right?  How could I not read about the event to which our current coronavirus pandemic keeps getting compared?

The description of the "Spanish influenza" scourge eerily matched the details of COVID19.  Transmission from animal to human, acquired by exposure to respiratory secretions, spread through travel by infected persons.  In 1917-1918, those persons were primarily soldiers, living in tight quarters and deployed to fight World War I.  They carried the virus from the U.S. to Europe, where it mutated and returned for a second, more deadly wave.  The symptoms seem to match up with COVID19, too.

If you have a middle grade-on-up reader who is curious about our current pandemic and how we've come to manage such outbreaks, this 48 page book can lend a historical perspective.  Nonfiction text features such as primary source material, photographs, web links, glossary, index, and bibliography make it a great teaching tool for beginning researchers.

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The other books I'm reading this week:  Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus by Dusti Bowling (liking it so far, recommend for fourth grade on up) and White Fragility:  Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo (a book for adults).

        

A reminder for our Round Rock ISD students:  don't forget to check out our district summer reading website for more reading resources and our Beach Blanket Bingo reading challenge!

It's Monday, and ABDO Publishers' The Flu Pandemic of 1918 captured my attention!  Are you reading any books related to current events?