What don’t you know, stupid?!

Everything You Know About The Human Body Is Wrong!

Written by: Emma Young @EmmaELYoung

Illustrated by: Maribel Lechuga

Published by: Nosy Crow @NosyCrow

Published on: May 2024

Price: £14.99

First line: The human body as you know it, has been around for about 300,000 years.

Genre: Non-fiction, science

Thanks to the UKLA for the review copy

What’s it all about? The title makes a bold claim, but one that is apparently true, and will probably always be true, because we are constantly finding out new things about our human bodies. Each double page spread in this huge book (apart from the first few: that give you some background into how humans have been created over the last 300 000 years) looks at a claim about the human body that people generally think is true. From, eating carrots to be able to see in the dark; to smiling to show you are happy; to having five senses.

Why should I read it? As a teacher, the most interesting topics were about how people struggle to make friends due to the ‘liking gap’, and how people with ‘self-control’ and ‘grit’ will do best in life, rather than those who do well on tests. Each page has beautifully illustrated pastel-coloured detailed pictures to show aspects of the topic. I especially liked the embossed front cover. The pages are generally in bite-sized chunks of information, so good for 9+; however, some pages are a bit heavy on information. The language is clear, introduces some good new topical words, and it is written in an impersonal tone just like an information text should be and in a number of places talks directly to the reader. This would therefore make a good modelled writing texts for in class learning. The topics chosen should appeal to this age range. The book is easy to navigate, with a clear contents page, glossary and index. I found the book inspiring and hopefully this will encourage children to head towards a career in the sciences finding out more answers for us!