Random Body Parts - Gross Anatomy Riddles in Verse (review)

Random Body Parts: Gross Anatomy Riddles in Verse

Author: Leslie Bulion
Publisher: Peachtree Publishers (March 1, 2015)
Review copy courtesy of publisher via NetGalley.

For Marvelous Middle Grade Monday, I had to let people know about this book coming out in about a week. There may be some who can resist a book with poetic riddles, science and gross imagery, but not me. With witty and intriguing poems that often slyly echo Shakespeare, entertaining illustrations and explanations for those youngsters who want to dive deeper into the science, this would be an excellent book for middle grade classrooms or homes.

A few of the words may be challenging, especially the more medical ones, but the author does a great job of explaining what they mean. Kids will enjoy learning some of the grosser words, and may well be heard repeating some of the clever phrases.

One riddle that I particularly enjoyed:

Wherefore Art Thou, Alveoli?
al VEE oh LI
al VEE oh LI
please tell me why
we must rely
on such small fry
to say goodbye
to carbon di-
oxide and then
how is it that you know
just when
to give us
oxygen
again?

My only quibble with the format of the book is that the solutions are too close to the riddles, though I understand it would have made the book much longer to put them on subsequent pages. I simply think kids might try a little harder to figure out the riddles (and feel smart when they do!) if the answers were more removed. On the other hand, I love that the poetic forms are explained at the end after the glossary. Yay, poetry.

Nonetheless, I would strongly recommend this for fifth and sixth graders interested in science, poetry, riddles or the human body.

Four out of five stars.

It has been quite a while since I have participated in Marvelous Middle Grade Monday, but I was glad to see that Shannon Whitney Messenger is still active. See her blog from today for many more MMGM links.