Human Body Theater is an ambitious, impressively substantive primer in human anatomy by Maris Wicks (Science Comics; Primates), a comic book-style "nonfiction revue" in 11 acts, hosted by a female human skeleton (and shameless punster).
On a curtained stage, this energetic revue begins as the skeleton reveals that it's really the cells, molecules and atoms that run the show, but Act One is the skeletal system, starring "BONES!" Quick... how many bones are in the adult human body? 206! What's the largest bone? Femur! Smallest? The stapes. (It's in the ear.) Straightforward, labeled anatomical diagrams abound, as do happy-faced body components and cartoon-bubble groaners, such as "Socket to me!" near the eye socket.
Act Two is the muscular system, and the master of ceremonies now looks like she's wearing a meat suit, which she removes to reveal her lungs for Act Three, the respiratory system. With just the right blend of silliness and scholarship, the skeleton marches readers through the rest of the body's essential systems: cardiovascular ("Beep! Beep! All aboard the blood bus!"), digestive, excretory--intermission here after all the bladder talk--endocrine, reproductive (all fairly clinical, as fertilization is illustrated on the cartoon sperm to egg level), immune and nervous systems, with Act Eleven as "Smell, Taste, Hearing, Sight and Touch." Along the way, Wicks sheds light on sneezing, yawning, hiccups, headaches, scabs, nutrition, allergies, hand-washing, hydration, burping, manners!, exercise, immunizations, asthma, puberty, colds and much, much more.
Like a pancreas to sugars, Human Body Theater breaks down a vast amount of information to make it more... digestible. --Karin Snelson, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness