Early Book Review: Zombie Makers by Rebecca L. Johnson

Zombie Makers: True Stories of Nature's Undead Rebecca L. Johnson is a non fiction book for children, around age 9 and older) scheduled for release on October 1 2012. The book is all about some of the fungi and parasites that can turn their hosts into zombies, not the zombie people that one might think about from popular culture, but still following the bidding of the creatures invading their body. Nature's zombie makers cannot raise creatures from the dead, but instead use their hosts for food and to aid in procreation. Some of the zombie makers included are a fly-enslaving fungus, a suicide worm, and a cockroach-taming wasp.

Zombie Makers is very well researched and put together to make the information accessible, interesting, and flow well. Words are defined and have pronunciations through out the text, helping even unfamiliar terms make sense. Young readers that are interested in creepy crawlies and the oddities of nature will be fascinated by the book, but those more squeamish or sensitive might want to keep walking past it. There are definitely a high gross out factor here, as you might expect, which has me looking at innocent insects a little differently in my daily life. However, I think those most likely to read the book's description or pick it up because of the title are likely to get exactly what they are looking for. I found the book to be unnerving; because of the creepy crawlies in the world, informative, and very interesting.