The Great Stink, non-fiction, illustrated book STEM that kids want to read

Joseph Bazalgette we salute you. Actually, everyone in London salutes you in their own special way. Bazalgette had an idea in the late 1840s; and while his idea wasn’t a new one in the greater global perspective, it was one that would forever change the capital of England. His job was to map London’s sewers, but this wasn’t the job that the short employee pulled. As an engineer, this was a challenge that he lived for and was one that had life and death results. The Great Stink is the illustrated book of this story that those young readers won’t be able to resist.

In the 1500s going to the bathroom was as simple as finding a hole in the ground. It wasn’t just any hole though, this is the literal definition of a cesspool, a hole where humans could pee or poop without fear of our waste seeping into the rivers. This worked for a while and provided some top-notch compost for the farmers, but a city as big as London would outgrow this model soon.

Fast forward to the early 1819 and Londoners have gone inside to use the toilet but said toilet was not always connected in the correct manner. Some toilets were hooked up directly to the city and others simply drained into a bucket, which was then dumped in the city streets. Any way that you looked at it, the city smelled like a toxic mess and the problem was only getting worse. 

Then in the early 1830s Cholera started across the land, this made a dirty situation deadly and the public paranoid about aspects of daily life. At this time the government thought that Cholera was spread by miasmas or smelly pockets of air.* It took another decade, but in 1849, Parliament decided to prove that this wasn’t the cause and mandated that all toilets be connected to the sewers.

This is where Bazalgette was able to finally shine but true to the natures of bureaucracy, it wasn’t until 1856 that his plans were able to be negotiated in Parliament. Then the plans were debated about their costs and in 1858 it was an incredibly hot summer in London. All of the human excrement that had been collecting in the Thames River heated up and The Great Stink began.

It was so smelly that Londoners feared another Cholera outbreak was nigh. The public’s outcry meant that in 1861 crews started digging beneath the city. They needed more land for the pipes to go under, so they reclaimed some land along the banks of the Thames so that they had enough space to properly design everything.

The Great Stink is an illustrated book that delves into the messy and delivers a STEM story that ages four and up will be amazed at. Those younger ages will shake their heads in wonder and stare gape-eyed at the book trying to figure out how a major city could ever exist without functioning toilets.  

The text by Colleen Paeff is to the point, but detailed enough to spell out a longer form, mature story that ages eight and up haven’t heard and will be captivated by. The illustrations are by Nancy Carpenter and her style meshes perfectly with the vibe of the book. They evoke a sense of humor, yet provide the details, inferences, and nuances that are needed to really capture those elementary-aged readers who want to read non-fiction STEM.

A great example of this is on the front cover. The author’s and illustrator’s names are partially submerged in the Thames River that’s polluted by dark brown-colored water. It’s the little details like that that are awash in the book, be sure to look for them.  This is a vehicle that swims in the sea of their jokes and humor while providing a true story about an engineer who saved a city. The Great Stink is one of the best children’s books of 2021 and something that will be in your forever library. It’s uncommon stories like this that make young readers the hidden jewels of history, similar to Jonas Hanaway’s Umbrella. These are stories that librarians and teachers want to hear more of and hope that publishers seek out these non-fiction tales that expand the reach of illustrated books.

The Great Stink, How Joseph Bazalgette Solved London’s Poop Pollution Problem is by Colleen Paeff, with illustrations by Nancy Carpenter and available on Simon & Schuster.

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*Of course, now Miasma is better known as an instrumental track from Ghost B.C, off of their 2018 release, Prequelle.