(3) 4-6 Illustrated by Robert Leighton. Colloquial yet accurate language delivers abundant information about how insects have affected history--usually for the worse (e.g., the plague-causing fleas of the fourteenth century). Albee excels at combining narrative, sidebars, quotations, and snappy headings ("Critter Transmitter") into a witty unified text, extended by archival images, photos, and Leighton's cartoons. Although this could be sensationalized, it's merely engaging. Reading list, websites. Glos., ind.

Reviewer: Frieda F. Bostian

(4) 4-6 Illustrated by Robert Leighton. Eighteen chapters with short sub-sections, call-out boxes, humorous cartoons, and archival photographs cover the human struggle to deal with excrement and its resultant smells, pollution, and diseases. The book's design is unattractive, but the tongue-in-cheek tone and goofy humor ("When in Rome, Poo as the Romans Do") will appeal to the middle-grade set. Timeline. Ind.

Reviewer: Gail Hedges

(2) 4-6 Illustrated by Robert Leighton. With Nick and Chava Castro. Gravelle (and her two teenage "advisors") takes a forthright approach to such topics as puberty, penis size, masturbation, sexual intercourse, reproduction, and STDs. The tone is candid and the advice objective. Diagrams are helpful, and cartoons lighten the mood, although it's too bad that the pictures and the text conspire to portray sperm as self-motivated "vigorous little swimmers."

Reviewer: Roger Sutton | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 1999