Information Graphics: Human Body

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