All about the gut by Dr Liz Bannister. Illus. by Beck Feiner

Another in a series which includes All about the Heart and All about the Brain, each of which is colourful and informative about the body’s organs.

The energy engine of the body is introduced starting at the mouth and ending with the bottom. The gut is responsible for breaking down the food we ingest, taking the nutrients our bodies need for their energy. This process, called digestion, begins with the breaking down of food, then the making of energy, ending with removing the waste.

From then on more detail is given about the process along with funny illustrations adding to the underlying humour. 

Lots of information is given to the reader along the way, answering questions they probably never thought about, but involve digestion. Did you know that digestion starts before you put food into your mouth? Sights and smells start the process, stirring the gut to be ready. Once in our mouth food is softened by our saliva. Our mouth makes up to six cups of saliva in one day! Did you know it’s the bile from our liver that makes our poo brown? Otherwise, it would be white. What an amazing load of facts, kids will love reading about them as well as sharing the facts with their friends, and their parents! Wonderful dinner time talk.

After being buffeted by saliva and roaming over the taste buds, the food travels down the oesophagus, where it is rhythmically moved down the gut to the stomach where it is squeezed and shaped, and hit by powerful acids to break the food down further. The small intestine absorbs the nutrients, then the large intestine absorbs the water from the food we have eaten and readies the waste for its evacuation. 

Readers will be totally absorbed in this no fuss description using humour to make it more digestible. Bright, funny illustrations cover every page, using blocks of colour, landscape and portraiture in a style with an arresting use of one double page, making readers turn the book around to see the whole of the digestive system.

Lots of funny facts are discussed in the following pages, including questioning how your body gets the right amount of nutrients, or how many microbes are contained in your body, and how long it takes for food to pass through your body. All the information will titillate and enthral younger readers. 

Themes: Gut, Body, Digestive system, Humour.

Fran Knight