Information Graphics: Human Body

by Simon Rogers, Peter Grundy (Illustrator)

Overview

The second in a visually stunning series, Information Graphics: Human Body shows just how interesting and humorous scientific information can be. Complex facts about the human body are reinterpreted as stylish infographics that astonish, amuse, and inform. Researched by the Guardian’s Datablog expert and designed by the father of infographics, Peter Grundy, this is a book of the highest pedigree.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780763671235
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	08/26/2014
Pages:	80
Product dimensions:	7.60(w) x 9.70(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	6 - 9 Years

About the Author

Simon Rogers is an editor at the Guardian and has won numerous awards for his work, including a Royal Statistical Society’s award of excellence in 2012.

Peter Grundy studied at the Royal College of Art. His clients include Shell Oil, Moet & Chandon, Royal Mail, the Guardian G2, The Red Bull F1 team, and Volkswagen.

Editorial Reviews

07/07/2014
In this companion to Information Graphics: Animal Kingdom, stylized infographics demonstrate the development and functions of the human body. Topics include the senses, reproduction, the heart, brain, and skeleton, each introduced in succinct paragraphs. Simplified, iconlike images of the body and its constituent parts appear in a fluorescent palette colors amid information-packed captions and tabbed sections for easy browsing. An ear-shaped squiggle encircles images that represent the decibels of various sounds (a “noisy restaurant,” represented by a cocktail glass, reaches 80 decibels); elsewhere, readers learn about obesity, digestion, parasite, and more. Visual learners should find the presentation especially illuminating. Ages 6–9. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

Stylized graphics rendered in saturated hues set this quick overview of body systems apart from the general run. Arranged in tabbed and color-coded sections, the tour covers familiar ground but often from an unusual angle. ... Visually arresting.
—Kirkus Reviews

Stylized infographics demonstrate the development and functions of the human body. ... Visual learners should find the presentation especially illuminating.
—Publishers Weekly

Attractive... The design is intriguing, with bright colors and cartoonlike symbols, giving it a modern, pop art look.
—School Library Journal

This basic overview of body systems will catch the eye of visual learners, particularly kids who love bold graphic art. ... Rogers’ captions, scattered liberally on every page, are pithy and full of easily digestible facts and figures.
—Booklist

For every gross or awe-inspiring fact about the human body you’ll find in Infographics: Human Body, designer Peter Grundy has a stylishly minimalist infographic to match. ... With bold colors, simple shapes, and subtle humor, Infographics explains complex bodily processes in kid-size pieces.
—Science Friday (NPR blog)

From the Publisher

10/01/2014
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

School Library Journal

2014-04-30
Stylized graphics rendered in saturated hues set this quick overview of body systems apart from the general run.Arranged in tabbed and color-coded sections, the tour covers familiar ground but often from an unusual angle. The tally of human senses at the beginning, for instance, includes "proprioception" (physical multitasking), and ensuing chapters on the skeletal, circulatory and other systems are capped with a miscellany of body contents and products—from selected parasites and chemicals to farts and sweat. Likewise, descriptions of a dozen physical components of the "Brain Box" are followed by notes on more slippery mental functions like "Consciousness" and "Imagination." The facts and observations gathered by Rogers are presented as labels or captions. They are interspersed on each spread with flat, eye-dazzling images designed by Grundy not with anatomical correctness in mind but to show processes or relationships at a glance. Thus, to show body parts most sensitive to touch, a silhouette figure sports an oversized hand and foot, plus Homer Simpson lips (though genitals are absent, which seems overcautious as an explicit section on reproduction follows a few pages later), and a stack of bathtubs illustrates the quantity of urine the average adult produces in an average lifetime (385 bathtubs' worth). There is no backmatter.Far from comprehensive but visually arresting and, at times, provocative. (Nonfiction. 11-13)

Kirkus Reviews