The Hidden Zoo Inside You
An Illustrated Guide to Pesky Organisms and Pandemics
The Hidden Zoo Inside You is Allen Jones’s fascinating, funny illustrated guide to microscopic organisms and the problems they can create.
Written by a medical doctor and prompted by COVID-19, the book aims to explain the main microscopic players in pandemics, including viruses and bacteria, and how they cause disease. Stuffed with an incredible amount of information, every page is enlightening, whether it has to do with the book’s primary subject, infectious diseases, or one of Jones’s unexpected tangents, as with those about the different types of bridges near Wuhan, China, the ancient marine predator Megalodon, or the novel Heart of Darkness.
Warmth, humor, and enthusiasm permeate the hand-drawn and lettered book. Although information is presented alongside drawings of varying quality and guided by stick figure characters, the net result is an effective and entertaining means of education. The book shows the inner workings behind many of the most feared diseases in the world today, including Ebola, rabies, and, yes, COVID-19, with a focus on zoology that illuminates the spread from one species to another.
The Hidden Zoo Inside You is a thorough, understandable graphic history of microbes and disease, presenting facts with a unique and appealing visual style.
Reviewed by
Peter Dabbene
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
