A basic study of the human body for an uncertain audience.
A lift-the-flap book explores the human body.
Enclosed in a regular binding rather than the usual cardboard covers of a toddler’s novelty book and featuring 70 lifting flaps, bright colors, cartoonlike illustrations, and a Q-and-A format, this effort offers accurate but very simple information on anatomy and physiology. A typical flap asks, “What pumps blood around my body?” The answer is under the flap: “Your heart. Your heart pumps the blood that moves around your body.” Other questions are posed in small sidebars with the answers immediately following, sans flaps. Sometimes answers are so brief as to be pointless, while others are confusing. “What does this pair of bean-shaped organs do?” is answered with, “These are your two kidneys….” Another text box is only slightly more enlightening: “Your pee—or urine—travels from your kidneys into your bladder.” A confusing cross section of the heart is filled with arrows pointing in various directions—supposedly showing the flow of blood—and includes a numbered series of steps with no corresponding numbers on the seemingly two-chambered heart (the unlabeled valves between atria and ventricles being depicted as comma-shaped lines). There is no backmatter. The reading level might match well with the middle grades, the level of complexity with early elementary, and the format with even younger children. Companion title Farm publishes simultaneously.
A basic study of the human body for an uncertain audience. (Nonfiction. 5-8)Pub Date: April 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-84780-906-3
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Wide Eyed Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
A good introduction to observation, data, and trying again.
Cece loves asking “why” and “what if.”
Her parents encourage her, as does her science teacher, Ms. Curie (a wink to adult readers). When Cece and her best friend, Isaac, pair up for a science project, they choose zoology, brainstorming questions they might research. They decide to investigate whether dogs eat vegetables, using Cece’s schnauzer, Einstein, and the next day they head to Cece’s lab (inside her treehouse). Wearing white lab coats, the two observe their subject and then offer him different kinds of vegetables, alone and with toppings. Cece is discouraged when Einstein won’t eat them. She complains to her parents, “Maybe I’m not a real scientist after all….Our project was boring.” Just then, Einstein sniffs Cece’s dessert, leading her to try a new way to get Einstein to eat vegetables. Cece learns that “real scientists have fun finding answers too.” Harrison’s clean, bright illustrations add expression and personality to the story. Science report inserts are reminiscent of The Magic Schoolbus books, with less detail. Biracial Cece is a brown, freckled girl with curly hair; her father is white, and her mother has brown skin and long, black hair; Isaac and Ms. Curie both have pale skin and dark hair. While the book doesn’t pack a particularly strong emotional or educational punch, this endearing protagonist earns a place on the children’s STEM shelf.
A good introduction to observation, data, and trying again. (glossary) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 19, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-249960-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
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