Julie’s thoughts: “This is a book of questions, rather than answers. There is history and science and tragic personal stories aplenty, but really I think this book serves more as a light to show us all that there are real, solvable problems that exist and how we should use the march of forward progress that has brought us so much to make life better for all of us, not just the few.“
The real magic of Green’s writing is the deeply considerate, human touch that goes into every word.” –The Associated Press
“This highly readable call to action could not be more timely.” –Kirkus, starred review
Tuberculosis has been entwined with humanity for millennia. Once romanticized as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is seen as a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it.
In 2019, author John Green met Henry Reider, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone. John became fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequities that allow this curable, preventable infectious disease to also be the deadliest, killing over a million people every year.
In Everything Is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world—and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.