THIRTY TRILLION CELLS

A lively overview of our bodies’ tiny but mighty basic components, with a chapter on the additional 30 trillion or so immigrants that live alongside them.

Following an outstanding study of biodiversity, Full of Life, illustrated by Sara Gillingham (2022), Thomas takes a younger intended audience down to the cellular level for an equally absorbing, at times amusing inside tour of nine body systems—including, unconventionally, the skeletomuscular and integumentary systems—and some of the 200 different types of specialized cells that comprise them, from osteoblasts and ova to detritus-chomping Kupffer cells (“They are your liver’s sniffer dogs”) and the ciliated epithelial cells that run a “snot escalator” to keep the lungs clear. Following brief forays into cancer and aging, Thomas also surveys the largely commensal or even beneficial microbiota that share our anatomical community and, in numbers at least, make up fully half of “one of the most complex things in the entire universe—you!” Cooper mixes images of a racially diverse cast, with a fascinating blend of body parts highlighted (fat cells twirled around a character’s arms, cells swirling around another character’s body), with simplified but recognizable depictions of cell types blessedly free of googly eyes or other anthropomorphic tweaks. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Anatomically exact and often funny to boot.