Review Detail

Head to Toe: An Introduction to the Human Body

Kids Nonfiction 306

Fun Facts about the Body

November 09, 2025 (Updated: June 12, 2026)

Overall rating

4.0

Writing Style

4.0

Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)

4.0

Learning Value

4.0

This beginning biology book is clever right from the start: the table of contents page faces a picture of a child, and dots with page numbers decorate the picture! I also appreciated that the information is presented in a "head, shoulders, knees, and toes" way! This means we start at face and head, where there are lots of interesting facts about everything from eyelashes and tears to the oddly disconcerting bit that our brains don't feel pain! While most pages deal with basics such as the growth timeline for teeth or how the heart pumps blood, but there are fascinating tidbits about smaller things like fingerprints, sweat, and the thickness of skin on different parts of the body (thickest on the soles of your feet and thinnest on your eyelids!).

Good Points

The pictures have an appropriate infographic feel to them; the shapes are very stylized and used to support text bubbles with information. The colors have a lot of different skin tones and reds, but also some blue for the background. Some pages require the book to be held at different angles so that body systems like the digestive tract can have more space to be spread out. I especially liked the numbered skeleton, and young readers will enjoy the discussion about poop.

There is a very brief and well worded discussion about the human reproductive system that describes "How Was I Made" that is age appropriate for younger children.

Body systems are fascinating for children; I loved the volume of the Childcraft Encyclopedia that had an article about getting one's tonsils out, and my own children pored over Kidder's 1965 Little Corpuscle: A Story About Blood. Head to Toe will lead to hours of interesting discussions and is a great addition to nonfiction titles about biology and anatomy like Krishan's You and Your Body, Playforth's Eyes, Nose, Belly, Toes: My First Human Body Book, DK's My Very Important Human Body Encyclopedia: For Little Learners Who Want to Know About Their Bodies (My Very Important Encyclopedias), or Stowell and Leake's Look Inside Your Body: Interactive Human Body Flap Book For Curious Young Minds.