Melissa Stewart
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Animal Grossapedia

Animal Grossapedia

by Melis­sa Stewart

Scholas­tic, 2012

for Ages 8–12

ISBN 978–054543-348–8

Pur­chase this book at your local inde­pen­dent book­seller or Amazon.com.

Lots of books focus on “gross” sub­stances in the human body, but many ani­mals use these same sub­stances in ways that will sur­prise and fas­ci­nate kids! Did you know that Komo­do drag­ons use their sali­va to poi­son their prey, but mice use spit to heal their wounds? Could you guess that sea cucum­ber use vom­it to star­tle ene­mies and bees use it to make hon­ey? Young read­ers will walk away grossed out and with an under­stand­ing of how dif­fer­ent ani­mals use spit, vom­it, slime, poop, urine, and blood to survive.

Honors and Awards

  • Nation­al Sci­ence Teach­ers Asso­ci­a­tion — Children’s Book Coun­cil Out­stand­ing Sci­ence Trade Book

Reviews

“This appeal­ing Ripley’s‑esque offer­ing pairs two peren­ni­al favorites: odd­i­ties of the ani­mal king­dom and gross sci­en­tif­ic fac­toids. Adults may be bet­ter off not know­ing that a cute bun­ny eats its own feces or that a giant water bug breathes through its behind, but the gross-out fac­tor will be a huge draw for kids, espe­cial­ly reluc­tant read­ers. Stewart’s thor­ough sci­en­tif­ic expla­na­tions are tem­pered by a casu­al lan­guage. Chil­dren will be so delight­ful­ly dis­gust­ed they may not notice that they are learn­ing basic and impor­tant bio­log­i­cal con­cepts such as eco­log­i­cal adap­ta­tion and envi­ron­men­tal stew­ard­ship. A detailed glos­sary includes brief and under­stand­able def­i­n­i­tions of all sorts of fun jar­gon: cecotrope, regurgitate,and more.” (Book­list)

To say I was riv­et­ed to each and every page of Ani­mal Gross­a­pe­dia (Scholas­tic, Octo­ber 2012) by Melis­sa Stew­art would be an understatement …

Melis­sa Stew­art has devot­ed her life to writ­ing non­fic­tion sci­ence books for chil­dren. With more than 150 titles to her cred­it, her deliv­ery is infor­ma­tive and high­ly engag­ing through her humor and easy con­ver­sa­tion­al style of pre­sen­ta­tion. It’s easy to imag­ine her read­ing the seg­ments in this book aloud to an audience.

Bright, col­or­ful pho­tographs doc­u­ment the nar­ra­tive. … In addi­tion to the Words To Know pages, read­ers can view the Con­tents in the begin­ning and Find Out More resources and an Index in the back.

… read­ers will be glued to the writ­ing style and the details it con­tains. For indi­vid­ual read­ers or even as a read aloud, this is non­fic­tion meant to be shared. (Librar­i­an’s Quest)

Behind the Book

“I wrote a book about spit a few years ago, and it turns out I wasn’t done with the top­ic. After I fin­ished the book, I kept on notic­ing ref­er­ences to weird and wacky ways that ani­mals use spit. I couldn’t cut myself. I kept col­lect­ing them. “As my file grew, I start­ed keep­ing an eye out for strange sto­ries about vom­it, and the full range of body waster prod­ucts. So when Scholas­tic edi­tor Bren­da Mur­ray asked me if I had a book idea that she thought could work in the trade mar­ket as well as in book fairs and book clubs, I pulled out all the clips I’d been sav­ing and devel­oped a pro­pos­al and writ­ing sam­ple. The result of that effort was this book — Ani­mal Gross­a­pe­dia.”

Animal Grossapedia

by Melis­sa Stewart

Scholas­tic, 2012

for Ages 8–12

ISBN 978–054543-348–8

Pur­chase this book at your local inde­pen­dent book­seller or Amazon.com.