Director of Public Health Emergency Management at the BC Centre for Disease Control and Assistant Professor in the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia, Bonnie Henry is the author of Soap and Water & Common Sense: The Definitive Guide to Viruses, Bacteria, Parasites, and Disease (Anansi, 2009). She lives in Vancouver.

BOOKS

Soap and Water & Common Sense: The Definitive Guide to Viruses, Bacteria, Parasites, and Disease (Anansi, 2009)

Be Kind, Be Calm, Be Safe: Four Weeks that Shaped a Pandemic (Allen Lane/Penguin, 2021) $26.95 9780735241862. Co-written with Lynn Henry

[BCBW 2021]

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ARTICLE

Be Kind, Be Calm, Be Safe


Dr. Bonnie Henry has gone from being a faceless bureaucrat to a well-known, well-trusted health officer in her handling of the Covid-19 health menace. Her approach caught the attention of people far away from B.C. including The New York Times, which called her “one of the most effective public health figures in the world.”

There is another talented sibling in the family: Bonnie Henry’s sister Lynn Henry, publishing director of Knopf Canada. Some may remember Lynn Henry as the chief editor of Polestar, a B.C. publisher founded in 1981 that was eventually bought by Raincoast Books. “I had the good fortune to work at one of B.C.’s most innovative independent literary houses, alongside two wonderful colleagues, Michelle Benjamin and Emiko Morita,” says Lynn Henry. “We were three dedicated people running this crazy dream of a press on a shoestring, and we published books I’m still proud of today.” It so happened that Lynn Henry was visiting her sister Bonnie in March 2020, just as the Covid-19 virus was identified as a pandemic. Lynn witnessed first-hand the whirlwind that became her sister’s daily life. With her knowledge of Bonnie Henry’s personal and professional background (that includes fighting SARS in Toronto in 2003 and the Ebola outbreak in Uganda in 2000 among other crises), Lynn Henry teamed up with Bonnie to write Be Kind, Be Calm, Be Safe: Four Weeks that Shaped a Pandemic (Allen Lane/Penguin $26.95). Including Dr. Bonnie Henry’s recollections of how and why decisions were made, the book delves into the delicate balance between individuals, society and the value placed on keeping everyone safe.