The Real Heroes
Jennings inoculating his first patient, eight-year-old James Phipps (who deserves a statue, too)
We put up statues to politicians and generals, but in a just world, people like Edward Jennings would have a statue on every corner. He created a true vaccine for smallpox, and the more I research pandemics, the more I understand how amazing his achievement was. This disease had been with us since ancient times and was capable of wiping out civilizations. Now? It’s gone. (Except for a few samples in laboratories which should be destroyed yesterday, if you ask me.)
Interestingly, he based his work on folk medicine practiced in Asia, where patients were immunized with pus taken from smallpox sores (it worked, though it was risky) and from the folk knowledge of farmers near his home, who insisted that, if they’d had cowpox, they were immune to smallpox (they were). So it was not just an individual epiphany, but an achievement built on observation and experimentation by countless others whose names science and history do not remember.
Read MoreA Pandemic Is Worldwide
HarperCollins is going to publish my new picture book, A Pandemic Is Worldwide! Pandemics through the ages, up to COVID-19. The research is a little grueling, but it’s quite remarkable to note how behavior patterns stay consistent from age to age. (Anti-masking prejudice, fyi, is not new….nor is anti-vaccine hysteria.)
The Art of a Wombat
A sample of Charles’s warm, sweet, tender, richly colorful art
So excited that Charles Santoso has ageed to illustrate my upcoming picture book, Wombat Underground! I know he’ll give it both warmth and humor and pathos. It’s so great than an Australian artist will illustrate this story of fear and danger and community during the Australian bushfire season of 2019-20.
Read MoreImagine a Classroom
The creative and thoughtful and marvelous second graders of Barrett Ranch Elementary School created a wonderful project–their own version of Imagine a Day. Theirs, however, is Imagine a Classroom. Now I want to go to school where there is a giant waterslide on the roof and giraffes in the classroom, where magic paper instantly corrects my mistakes and no one ever feels left out!
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Sarah L. Thomson
A children’s book author publishing award-winning nonfiction, poetry, picture books and novels including…
“Readers will treasure the blossoming friendship between opposites in this whimsically illustrated tale. Short chapters and plenty of action make for an accessible and appealing reading experience. . . . Touching and inspiring.”
—Kirkus Reviews