Summer Reading 2026: History of Science

Here are four eBooks on the History of Science written at the 4th- to 10th-grade level. You can find additional science titles at ebooksforstudents.org. These free ebooks have not been banned from classrooms. Rather, they are not available because administrators in state education departments do not believe that the volume of reading matters to high school students. They demand textbooks that students find boring and don’t read. Other administrators don’t have the budgets for books, and have not yet turned to free eBooks.

Each link provides a button to download the eBook and a short description of the content. The titles are:

Microbe Hunters by Paul de Kruif
Grade Level is 10.6. A reviewer on Goodreads wrote, “The book discusses the giants of germ theory and does so in a way that makes these scientists approachable as real men with real emotions. It must have been a groundbreaking book when it first came out in the 1920s. It is amazing how many researchers and physicians from my generation read and were impacted by this book.”

The Mosquito Man: The Story of Ronald Ross by John Rowland
Grade Level is 8.4. Here is the fascinating story of how Sir Ronald Ross brought the malaria menace under control. In 1902 Ross was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine; 1926 marked the opening of the Ross Institute and Hospital for Tropical Diseases. And today, in Malaya, in Africa, in India, in China, in Japan—wherever there is malaria, Sir Ronald Ross will be remembered gratefully, because he showed men how to conquer a killing disease.

Vanquishing Yellow Fever by Edward F. Dolan
Grade level is 4.5.  No sooner had the Spanish-American War ended —a war lasting less than five months—than a killer of men appeared in Cuba that was far deadlier than any man-made arms. Yellow fever, which for centuries had ravaged the island population, struck down Cubans and Americans alike. This is the story of how Walter Reed and his colleagues discovered how yellow fever was transmitted and how they suppressed it.

The Penicillin Man: The Story of Alexander Fleming by John Rowland
Grade Level is 9.3. “This book is more than the story of a great discovery. It is an inspiring account of the rewards, both in fame and personal satisfaction, that a scientific career offers.”—New York Times.
“From Scottish farm boy to Nobel Prize winner, this book traces the events that led a brilliant mind to a new concept in the treatment of disease: the body has natural defenses against disease that must be discovered and enhanced. Teenagers who have grown up in the security of antibiotics will gain a perspective on medicine’s swift progress in the few years since Fleming discovered the bacteria-killing mold “—Scholastic Teacher.