The Fox and the Grapes: A Retelling of Aesop's Fable

By Mark White and Sara Rojo Pérez

Retells the fable of a frustrated fox that, after many tries to reach a high bunch of grapes, decides they must be sour anyway.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
• Release date: Jul 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781666300604

Mark White

Dr. Mark White left his job as the bubonic plague epidemiologist for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to start a new life in a large New York City Hospital. He fell in love with a vivacious Filipino nurse named Budsy Mendoza. They married in 1986, the year the People Power revolution overthrew the Marcos dictatorship. They moved to Manila and got jobs helping set up a CDC in the Department of Health. The couple stopped epidemics of cholera, typhoid, measles, malaria, hepatitis, and other tropical diseases. The political situation was stormy, and we lived through six military coup attempts. During the last, we investigated an Ebola virus epidemic.There were frequent natural disasters, including earthquakes, typhoons, and floods. The most memorable was the massive 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo. It spewed so much ash into the atmosphere that the global temperature dropped by two degrees C for two years. Mark and Budsy were charged with ensuring the health of 140,000 evacuees and were gratified when there was only one small outbreak among them. Later, after Idi Amin was overthrown in Uganda, the Rockefeller Foundation hired Mark and Budsy to help the government of Uganda develop an epidemiology training program. The revolution was still going on, so they had a tough assignment. One morning Budsy they found two men shot dead on our street. Then their maid discovered a murder plot against them.The Centers for Disease Control hired Mark to head the Division of International Health in 1997. A week before we left, I was electrocuted by a short circuit in a lamp and had to have a metal prosthesis put in to replace his broken humerus. They moved to Atlanta, where they helped create CDC-style training programs in health ministries in 12 countries and regions, including China, India, Brazil, Japan, Central Asia, and Central America.

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