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  • Ick! Yuck! Eew!: Our Gross American History by Lois Miner Huey
  • Elizabeth Bush
Huey, Lois Miner Ick! Yuck! Eew!: Our Gross American History. Millbrook, 2013 48p illus. with photographs Library ed. ISBN 978-0-7613-9091-6 $29.27 E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-4677-1710-6 $21.95 Ad Gr. 3-5

Eye-catching bookmaking is the draw in this quick overview of some of the nastier aspects of America before the arrival of hand sanitizer. Four short chapters should convince kids that the twenty-first century is a desirable place, if only for its hygienic practices. The first chapter deals with odor from refuse-strewn streets and unwashed citizens; next come bugs, from disease bearing mosquitoes and flies to biting bedbugs, and lice. Then germs are on deck, with a focus on smallpox and early inoculations; tortuous clothing wraps it up, with stays, powdered wigs, layers of wool, and the dubious advantages of lye soap. Text is broken into browsable chunks under subheadings; artifacts and period illustrations, along with splashes of indeterminate goo and crawling critters, march across every spread. There’s not a lot of information here that isn’t readily available in other sources on early America, and the rust-red interjections (“Cramps! Mess! Gross!”; “Pain! Scars! Eew!”) get tiresome pretty fast. Seven pages of end matter—from index to glossary to reading lists and photo credits—are nearly as substantial as the text, and the annotated suggestions for further reading and online research will guide readers to their Ick! of choice.

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