I Want an Apple: How My Body Works

PreS-Gr 1--Beautifully illustrated and with spare writing, this work captures the complexity of human digestion in the body of a hungry girl. The narrative follows a brown-skinned child, who desires an apple and uses her senses to find and then eat the fruit. The humorous text shows readers how her body digests it. This is not a book about the science of eating; it is about the poetry of bodily functions. The lyrical text is short; the snappy pace will engage children as they devour Catrow's detailed, hand-drawn artwork. There is not much back matter; rather, this book is about listening to your body--audibly in some instances, like the "crunch" of biting into an apple and the "rumbly tummy" after, and in other ways, as when your "smart brain" helps you find an apple. Or, as Harrison writes in the closing pages: "I love my body--/busy, busy./ I love me." VERDICT This will make for a fun story time, where bodily functions can be the silliest.--Jessica Schriver, Rutgers Univ., Newark, NJ