You & Your Amazing Brain

The brain is rather incredible 🧠 Very educational with super interesting facts and visuals for easy learning. Super detailed - I'm still trying to absorb it all. Great resource for the classroom or home setting for young, growing brains. Fantastic!

Kiddo (9) and I really enjoyed this book of facts and information about the brain. They say they would give most of it 5 stars except the drilling holes in people's heads part was gross and scary so they would give it a 4 overall. XD

There is a lot of information about what people have historically thought of the brain, contrasted with what we know now. There are diagrams of the brain showing each part and what they do. There are explanations of how the brain gets information and how it uses that information to make decisions and then how it affects the rest of the body in order to make those decisions happen. There is a lot of information about hormones and where they originate and what they do. Kiddo and I learned a lot. I have never encountered a better explanation of all the things the brain does, and I took high school- and college-level biology classes.

There were also a lot of 'try this' optical illusions and logic puzzles to solve and since we were reading it as a bedtime story those sections didn't work as well. We have gone back the next day to try some of them, however, and will try more. I just think they would have worked better (for us) sectioned off into a "try this" section instead of scattered throughout the chapters. (Even though I understand the logic of placing them in the section where the theory is talked about.)

My kiddo is 9 and loved it but they also love science in general, so I would put the target age a bit older for most kids -- except for those who love science 8 or 9 is fine. I think having an adult reading along in that case helps to ease understanding because of the reading level of the text.

This would be a great addition to an upper elementary or middle school science classroom. The brain isn't covered too often in such classes and it's fascinating and useful to know about.

Kiddo has now asked to read it a second time less than a week later which says something about how interesting they find it.

On our third read-through, I skipped a lot of the 'try this' puzzles because we'd already read them, and I actually found that I came away with a better impression of the book and the information it contained. I think the puzzles broke up the information just enough that it felt like less than is actually there. I'm revising my previous thoughts because I don't think I gave this enough credit before.

*Thanks to NetGalley, Quarto, and Words & Pictures for providing an early copy for review.

This is a lovely educational resource, that is so beautifully presented that kids won't even realise they are learning!

The topic is fascinating, and there is lots to learn for both adults and children.

Fascinating facts are provided throughout the book, and the graphics also make it super engaging.

The book features 3 sections: 'the naked brain', 'mind mechanics' and 'so much to take in'. From these titles I wasn't quite sure what to expect from each section, but it made sense as we worked our way through it.

Overall this is a book I thoroughly enjoyed sharing with children and wouldn't hesitate to recommend.

My thanks to NetGalley, author and publisher for the opportunity to review this book in exchange for an advance copy.

Cute illustrations and concise explanations for children to start learning about their bodies and sciences in general. I hope there will be more books like this. Thank you the author, the publisher, and Netgalley for sending me this e-ARC.

This remarkable teen’s book does an amazing job at explaining just how weird and wonderful the brain is.

It’s wonderfully illustrated, and this together with the fact that the text is broken down into chunks of just three sentences or less, means that it feels more like reading a magazine than a book.

While it does a great job at explaining the basics of how the brain works, it’s also packed with lots of interesting facts.

Better yet, there’s also a feature called Brain Lab, which encourages the reader to try things out for themselves, so it’s very interactive and engaging.

There’s a glossary at the back of the book, which will be handy for the book’s target audience.

There’s also a great section on further reading recommendations, which includes not only written sources but also the URLs for some neat TED talks and YouTube videos as well.

This certainly gets a 5-star rating from me.

Cari Mayhew

This Brain book would be an awesome addition to an upper elementary- middle school classroom. Brain science is actually really cool, and finding ways to share how the brain works with students helps them understand even more about themselves. This could be a great follow up read if your school or class is participating in 180 Days of Educational Neuroscience!

"You & Your Amazing Brain" is an excellent read for young children age 10 or older (younger if the child enjoys reading about dinosaurs). This was a well-written and illustrated anatomy book with plenty of facts and fun do-it-yourself projects that will keep your child interested. Every aspect of the brain I could think of was covered in enough detail to be clear (although I was thrown by the term "Rosehip Neurons" near the end and had to rush to Wikipedia for the definition).

Disclaimer: This book is an advance review copy (ARC) that I was given by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for letting me review this book. This was an interesting and insightful book on how the brain works. I don’t think we realize all the things the brain dies for us. I liked the animal brain facts-a giant squid’s brain is shaped like a donut! I also liked the puzzles throughout the book. The book, videos and website sections were a nice touch along with the glossary at the end.

Quarto Publishing Group do not know how to disappoint when it comes to such books!

Their guidebooks are the best!

This lushly detailed guidebook talks about the human brain, describing the different parts and their important functions.

The presentation is fun and the information provided really useful. Perfect for the reading audience, the content do not overload nor does it make things complicated. Much, much, much better than the random science books or videos I would always go for this book to talk and teach about the human brain to the beginners.

Thank you, Quarto Publishing Group- words & pictures, for the advance reading copy.

I read this with my 8 year old nephew and we had a blast, he particularly LOVED that there was an axolotl shown in one of the pages and it made him more interested in following along with me. I like the balance the book had with sharing historical ideas of brain function, modern biological information and had the visuals so I could help him understand as we read together. I learned new things as an adult too, like how brains don't feel pain so surgeon's can operate on them with the patient awake!