Body Actions

September 1, 2012
Bright, clear photographs and design offer an unfussy look at anatomy for very young readers and listeners. Full-color photographs of children accompany a brief text that invites readers to think about how they accomplish everyday activities: "How do you kick a ball, jump rope, blow up a balloon, digest food, read a book, or ride a bike?" Overlay drawings of body systems--skeletal, muscular, nervous, respiratory, circulatory, digestive--offer a peek inside, and a longer explanation at the end of the book reinforces the information. A diagram of the airways and lungs is superimposed on the photograph of a girl blowing up a balloon, which becomes a cross section of an eye in another photograph. The explanation for each function is very brief, really just providing the location and generalized way that it contributes to the body, but it's enough to be a starting point for more learning and certainly for an appreciation of the complexity right at hand. Brief definitions of the five senses, a longer explanation for the function of skin and hair, and a glossary of 14 body terms and text elaborating on body systems make up the backmatter. Very simple, accessible and appealing as a starting point for human-science learning. (Informational picture book. 3-6)

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October 1, 2012

K-Gr 1-Ambitious to fault, this title tries to cover too much, which results in a little bit of information about a lot of things. The boy riding a bike on the cover and the title seem to indicate that it will be a book about movement, but it is really a brief overview of the entire human body. The nervous, skeletal, muscular, respiratory, circulatory and digestive systems; the five senses; skin, and hair are all touched on. The full-color photographs are lovely; they feature racially diverse children, and some of the photographs include an illustration of the body system superimposed on the child. For example, the boy eating a piece of watermelon has an illustration of his digestive tract over his torso. Overall, though, there is so much going on that too much gets glossed over.-Heather Acerro, Rochester Public Library, MN

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2012
Grades 2-4 Rotner's big, appealing photos of children taking part in various activities serve as an introduction to six systems of the human body. This is helped along by White's drawings of the internal organs that make up each system, which are overlaid upon the photos to show where they are located. Meanwhile, one or two sentences of text explain how each system enables us to do the activity pictured. Fun-fact information about teeth, skin, hair, and the five senses are tossed into the text for good measure: Your digestive tract is about six times longer than you are tall if it was unfolded. This is a step up from Rotner's previous book on the topic, The Body Book (2000), which featured analogous photos but no information or drawings about our internal workings. Eye-catching, pleasing, and concise, with clear text and photos in a handsome layout, this will prove useful for those looking for very basic information on the topic.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)