This is a fun and very kid-friendly introduction to the body and its various functions and capabilities. It begins with a set of transparent overlays which portray the skeleton (skeletal system), the heart, lungs and blood (cardiovascular system), and the brain and nerves and digestive system. When I first got this book (back in the days when I was a DK representative for a short time) I worried that this book wouldn't hold up very well. After more than three years of use by little hands, I have to admit it's done quite well.

The rest of the book provides simple text, funny illustrations and the trademark DK photos covering the following topics: faces, skin and hair, muscles and bones, blood and heart, lungs and breathing, digestion, brain and nerves, eyes and seeing, ears and hearing, taste and smell, touch, growing up and "all about you."

The digestion is handled quite politely (no graphic pictures) and I was pleasantly surprised at how well the "growing up" section was handled. It begins with a very sweet and simple explanation of conception "A baby starts when a tiny sperm from the father joins with an egg inside the mother. The egg attaches itself to a part of the mother called the womb..." (pg. 29) and goes on to descriptions of the various stages of development of an unborn baby. Although the term fetus is mentioned, the baby is called a baby throughout the text!!! Again – no yucky pictures but not twaddly or dumbed-down either.

This is a nicely illustrated book for very young children on everything having to do with hands. The very simple text covers the names of the fingers (index, middle, etc.), the sense of touch, right or left-handed, the importance of thumbs and how different hands can be ("Daddy's hands are different from mine. They are big and rough and bony. Mother's hands are soft...") This is a charming little book for helping children appreciate how wonderfully they are made.

I confess I have a stack of books here waiting... some about libraries under different themes. Alas, the warmth today brings our minds to travel towards a green world, full of sunshine and growth.

That, coupled with my 4th grader exclaiming, "Mom, you should blog about this nice book!" has me posting this gem found at the library under new books just yesterday! She is an avid picture book reader and her enthusiasm for this colorful, plant-full book alone is a thumbs up for me!

Product description: 

Plants come in all shapes and sizes, but they go through the same stages as they grow. Using four common plants, young readers learn about a plant's life cycles. Simple text and colorful illustrations show the major phases of plant growth: seed, plant, flower, and fruit. Back matter offers more information on each plant, as well as on each stage of growth. 

Seymour Simon is well-known for his numerous photo-essay-type of picture books for elementary-aged students. Most of his books center around one specific well-defined topic and are illustrated with full-page photographs of the subject. This book is no exception. Sharks is an unpaginated, 32-page picture book, with approximately half of those pages containing full-color photographs of sharks.

The text begins by reassuring the young reader that shark attacks on humans are relatively uncommon and continues with a comparison between sharks and other types of fish. Several pages describe the characteristics of different kinds of sharks, leaving the reader with a sense of how varied these fish truly are. There are also two pages that describe the different types of shark reproduction; for my young non-readers, I skipped the paragraphs that described "external fertilization" and "internal fertilization". The book closes by reminding the children that sharks do not attack people very often, despite what they may have heard, and gives several suggestions for staying safe whilst swimming.

As usual for Seymour Simon's books, the photographs are of high quality and are truly the highlight of the book. Two of the photographs show the teeth and jaws of sharks up close, and my sensitive 5-year-old was horrified. Even so, my 3-year-old was fascinated. One photograph shows the birth of a lemon shark, which is born live as are human babies; my little readers didn't understand this and breezed right by it. The most popular picture of all was that of a hammerhead shark. The children were incredulous that any living creature could look so odd. Weeks later, they still talk about the hammerhead and are anxious to see one at an aquarium.