What's Eating You?: Parasites -- The Inside Story

Lots of great information. My son reads this while he's in the time out chair. He loves it.

I am a scientist working with parasites. When I heard about this book I ordered it for my friend's kids (6 and 10 years old), and they LOVE it. It is very educational and accurate while making the subjuct matter fun. Even the adults in the family love this book. They have been all reading it over and over and talking about the content.

Yuckiness sells! Especially to male teens. (And to this male, no longer teen, but still young enough at heart to remember the appeal of yuckiness.) The same authors served that same market segment with Poop: A Natural History of the Unmentionable and Extreme Animals: The Toughest Creatures on Earth. This book describes bizarre parasites that inhabit people and other creatures. They are cleverly drawn and described in a flat, matter of fact style. Her publisher's website, Walker Books, has a quote that captures her appeal to boys of all ages: "I don't remember a time when I wasn't utterly besotted with animals. I spent all my time before I went to school, in the garden with my lovely Grandpa (who was small and round and had all sorts of things in his cardigan pockets) looking at flowers, and ants and bird's nests." This book has enough substance to appeal to much older readers. Robert C. Ross 2008

I read this book to my kids about a week ago and they loved it! My oldest son shocked me last night by telling our friends about the book and remembered some really difficult names...and he's 5! This book has gross, but never crude information about parasites in it and it is a great read. The illustrations made the complex world of parasites totally understandable and fun to my 4 & 5 year-old audience. This book is pretty long for that age group but they loved every moment of it and never tired. This covers human and animal parasites and how they get into you and the other animals, what they look like, what their purpose is, how they harm or don't harm you, how some of them are beneficial, and how some of them live amazingly crazy life-cycles. My kids are pretty young, but I found the information fascinating as well. I would venture to say this is a book for readers of all ages, who have a little bit of curiosity and humor in them. I never ventured to think that parasites would be fun learning about, but this book does just that.