ALA Booklist (Mon Dec 01 00:00:00 CST 2014)

This basic overview of body systems will catch the eye of visual learners, particularly kids who love bold graphic art. Grundy's offbeat visual style is infographic based, with simple shapes representing complex concepts. For example, an illustration discussing which body parts have the most nerve endings shows a cartoon body with overlarge lips, hands, and feet e most sensitive parts. Rogers' captions, scattered liberally on every page, are pithy and full of easily digestible facts and figures. The art is cartoonish enough that even the section on reproduction might avoid controversy, as the sexual organs are hardly recognizable. This lack of realism might frustrate more science-minded readers, who will long for photos and drawings of actual human beings, and the overall peach skin tone of the bodies may alienate people of color. That said, the brief overview does offer some unique information, such as the section on senses, which includes proprioception, balance, temperature, and pain, components often glossed over in books about human anatomy. An optional, but unique, addition to biology or anatomy collections.

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

In this companion to Information Graphics: Animal Kingdom, stylized infographics demonstrate the development and functions of the human body. Topics include the senses, reproduction, the heart, brain, and skeleton, each introduced in succinct paragraphs. Simplified, iconlike images of the body and its constituent parts appear in a fluorescent palette colors amid information-packed captions and tabbed sections for easy browsing. An ear-shaped squiggle encircles images that represent the decibels of various sounds (a -noisy restaurant,- represented by a cocktail glass, reaches 80 decibels); elsewhere, readers learn about obesity, digestion, parasite, and more. Visual learners should find the presentation especially illuminating. Ages 6-9. (Aug.)

School Library Journal (Wed Oct 01 00:00:00 CDT 2014)

Gr 4 Up-An attractive but flawed book of infographics about the human body. The design is intriguing, with bright colors and cartoonlike symbols, giving it a modern, pop art look. However, this title lacks source information and contains many inaccuracies, such as the number of follicles (inaccurately labeled as eggs) a baby girl has at birth (500,000 as opposed to the correct number of one to two million, which are reduced by the time of puberty to around 400,000) and the number of cells that a newborn baby has. Other facts are highly subjective, including the meanings attributed to different kinds of infant crying. Grundy states that humans can recognize 10,000 different odors, but scientific reports since the publication of the book suggest that the number ranges more in the range of one trillion odors. Give this one a pass. Nancy Silverrod, San Francisco Public Library