Micro Mania

Book excerpt: Get ready to be grossed out! Try not to panic, but a million creatures are crawling all over your skin--wriggling on your legs, your neck, your scalp...everywhere! And that's only on the outside of our bodies. Trillions more of these itty-bitty things are thriving INSIDE! Here's a big treat for every kid who loves the squirmy, icky, buggy, and the generally gross. Sensationally designed, with eye-opening, jaw-dropping photography, MICRO MANIA takes a close-up look at a world that's mostly invisible to us. It's an amazing universe that comes into astonishingly large-scale focus on these spectacular pages--which showcase everything from luminescent, furry-green bacteria and flowerlike virus cells to maggots, mold, and more. But this is more than just a collection of mind-blowing images; it's solid science that encourages children's natural curiosity. They'll find out about the great scientists who discovered the existence of microbes; see how bacteria travel and reproduce; peek at some of the insects that make themselves at home in our kitchens, bathrooms, and bodies; and learn why some germs are good and others make us ill--and what we can do to stay healthy. By the time they've finished taking this voyage through nature's miniature universe, kids will fully understand why even the tiniest of creatures--from foot fungus and salmonella to blood-sucking bugs and organisms squiggling in a pond near you--can have a really big impact on our lives.