Unless it's a child of Jenny McCarthy or the anti-vaccine, anti-GMO, anti-science demographic that listens to her, kids of today who are reading classic fiction may not understand the world characters of the past lived in. Cholera? Scarlet Fever? Jungle Fever?
A lot of great books written today simply lack a plot, unless the emotional anchors for The Velveteen Rabbit and Little Women could be transformed into worries about global warming and how much water should be in a toilet flush.
At Discover, Elizabeth Preston outlines a whole bunch of great books that kids read and that revolved around medical facts of the day. Want to know what Tiny Tim had and how he was likely cured? You have to go read the article.
Classic Children’s Books That Would Be Ruined by Modern Medicine By Elizabeth Preston, Discover
