Germ Stories

Over the years, Nobel laureate Arthur Kornberg regaled his children and grandchildren with rhyming tales of the tiny beasties in the germ parade.

Arthur's poems and stories are now available for all in this beautifully rendered children's picture book. Germ Stories will bring the microscopic world to life for the very youngest readers and grown ups alike with its richly imaginative narrations and its vividly rendered art and color photos.

Children's Literature

These poems were composed by Nobel-prize winning scientist Arthur Kornberg for his grandchildren and circulated among his family for years. Now his family has decided to share them with the world of children everywhere—or more possibly with children who have an interest in memorizing the parts and characteristics of various really unpleasant germs, and, ok, some bacteria that are good for the body. Kornberg may have won a Nobel Prize but it was not for poetry, even children's poetry, so the verses commit all the usual sins of straining for rhyme, wrenching syntax, and lack of subtlety. However, these verses are for children who probably will not care about that, and each germ is elaborately illustrated and photographed. Plus, the accompanying text includes fun facts, such as 5,600,000,000 Penicillum notatum would fill just one sombrero. So this book is probably good for convincing kids to wash their hands and to be aware of the many worlds that exist within them. Parents who may have to read the book to their kids might not enjoy it very much—unless they were the grandchildren of the author perhaps. Reviewer: Myrna Dee Marler

Arthur Kornberg won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1959 for his laboratory synthesis of DNA. He is the author of several major books, including DNA Replication, The Golden Helix and For the Love of Enzymes: the Odyssey of a Biochemist. He was Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry at the Stanford University School of Medicine until his death in October of 2007. Germ Stories was his last publication, with which he hoped to excite children with the wonders of the microbial world.