The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a graphic novel that uses trolls, aliens, and a county fair to explain how it investigates mysterious disease outbreaks. It’s meant for teens, but it’s a good read for adults, too
Nearly two dozen very serious subject matter experts from the CDC, the US Department of Agriculture, and the 4-H club contributed to Junior Disease Detectives: Operation Outbreak, which you can download on the CDC’s website. It’s a detective story with cover art that looks like something off a science fiction book from the 1980s. And even though I’m not their target audience, I tried it — and it’s actually a lot of earnest, educational fun.
The book opens with a group of students at a 4-H club meeting, prepping for the CDC’s Disease Detective Camp. They imagine fantastical outbreaks they’d fight: in one of these imagined scenarios, medieval archers defend a castle against an troll-like army of germs. In another, vaccines keep an astronaut safe on a space station contaminated with an alien virus.
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