A Shot in the Arm! by Don Brown

A Shot in the Arm traces the history of vaccination in graphic-novel format, from the 18th century to the present day.

A Shot in the Arm! (Big Ideas that Changed the World series) by Don Brown. Amulet Books, 2021, 138 pages, including notes, index, and bibliography.

Reading Level: Middle Grades, ages 8-10

Recommended for: ages 7-12

All through the 18^th century, smallpox ravaged Europe. Those who escaped death usually didn’t escape disfigurement, as the sores left permanent pits on the skin and face. When the disease came for our narrator, Lady Mary Worley Montagu, in 1715, it spared her life but robbed her of her looks. In Turkey, as the wife of a British diplomat, she heard of a treatment used by some local practitioners to ward off the disease. This was inoculation, whereby pus or dried smallpox scabs were applied a scratch on a healthy person. He or she would usually get a milder form of the disease, and then be immune for life. Lady Montagu had both of her children inoculated, and her high-born example spread the word. Royalty was inoculated. Puritan pastor Cotton Mather was inoculated. George Washington’s army was inoculated. Before the century was out, Dr. Edward Jenner developed a better form of smallpox prevention he called vaccination, and a revolution in preventative medicine was underway.

Don Brown uses his signature slapdash style for this graphic presentation. He also uses a bewildering variety of costume styles, for some reason—Lady Montagu appears more 19^th than 18^th century. Nonetheless, this is a history well worth knowing, and useful to the pro- & anti-vax debate. Brown includes vaccination missteps as well as successes and seems reasonably well-balanced until the present day. Not entirely his fault, because the facts about Covid-19 haven’t all come to light. He cites the Wuhan wet-market theory of the disease’s origin as fact and leaves us hanging as to whether an effective vaccine can be produced in only a few months. Given the length of time it takes to produce a picture book, the publisher did a remarkable job of rushing this one in record time, but be warned that where Covid is concerned, it’s very incomplete.

Overall Rating: 3.5 (out of 5)

• Worldview/moral value: 3.5
• Artistic/literary value: 3.5

Read more about our ratings here.

Also at Redeemed Reader:

• Reviews: Other graphic nonfiction by Don Brown: Rocket to the Moon! (Great Ideas series), Fever Year, and Drowned City.
• Reviews: All in a Drop tells the fascinating story of Antony van Leeuwenhoek and the invention of the microscope. For more about those pesky viruses, see The Bacteria Book: The BIG World of Really Tiny Microbes.
• Reviews: The science of disease is actually a mystery story where several detectives track down and (hopefully) destroy the killer. Breakthrough! and Radium Girls, both for middle grades and up, are just such stories.

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