You know that heartbreaking feeling when you misjudge a book by its cover? You see it sitting there, and are instantly attracted to it, but when you open it up, it's full of disappointment? Not unlike my recent dating experiences.

Well, I (luckily) had the exact opposite experience with Random Body Parts. While it wasn't necessarily the cover that made me uncomfortable, but my experience with NetGalley has found the "Read Now" section contains landmines, enough that my finger wavers before clicking to download one I may be interested in. I read the blurb, I deliberated, and then I just said "Gross riddles about the human body? How could that be disappointing? Even if the verse is terrible and the illustrations are bad, it's body humor, not Shakespeare (you'll find out why that's funny in a moment)."

And it wasn't. It was so much more than that. The illustrations are hilarious and cute, reminiscent of a scrapbook. The verse IS gross, disgustingly funny but still appropriate for children.

This book aims to establish interest in science and poetry by evoking children's interest in the disgusting anatomical gags they find so wonderful (I'm 2o and I still make fart jokes, so I'm no delicate flower). From a clever play on Macbeth about the stomach to a heart-wrenching (literally *wink*) Sonnet 18, allusions to Shakespeare help give these silly verses some literary weight. I'm not even a fan of Shakespeare but I enjoyed reading the way these riddles were inspired by his work.

It also renewed my faith in NetGalley's "Read Now" section. Perhaps some publishers are just generous with their good works. The Good BookLord knows I needed this after I got rejected from that new RL Stine novel a few months ago (I just haven't been the same...)

Interesting poems has lots of factual information and and information about the poetic forms.

What a totally cool book! It has the unusual combination of biology and poetry and with poems and riddles about body parts, also gives factual information about the human body and includes information about each poem - it's type and rhyme pattern etc... at the end of the book. I think this book is a fun and unusual way to look at body parts and poetry for kids. It includes drawings and some photographs, a glossary, a diagram of the human body, and more. From the heart to the bones, eyes, blood, pancreas, brain and more, a variety of interesting and sometimes a bit disgusting information is shared in the form of poems, rhymes and prose. It is quite informative and lots of fun to read. I received this book free to review from Netgalley and I highly recommend it.

I picked up this book thinking it would be great for middle school boys. I was sadly disappointed. The rhymes are forced and frankly, just not compelling. There is a fact box about each body part/system which is useful. Probably best suited for a 2nd-4th grade level, but I'm still not sure that they would get much out of it either.