It Takes Guts: How Your Body Turns Food Into Fuel (and Poop)

It Takes Guts: How Your Body Turns Food Into Fuel (and Poop) is an excellent and comprehensive overview of the human digestive system by Dr. Jennifer Gardy, a scientist who is so interested in the digestive system she has swallowed a tiny camera to explore her own stomach and intestines. Along with illustrator Belle Wuthrich, Dr. Gardy has created a highly entertaining and education book.

It Takes Guts starts at the beginning when you put food in your mouth, and the book takes the reader through all the different parts and processes of digestion. Each part of the digestive system has its own chapter, allowing for lots of information to be presented and digested by readers. Readers are taken down the esophagus and through the stomach and intestines to see how the body gets nutrients from food and what happens to the leftovers. In addition to the basics of how the digestive system works, the book contains plenty of extra facts and information that will be fun for readers, including burping in space, why it can seem like you have a dessert stomach, why you feel like you have butterflies in your stomach when you are nervous, a brief history of the toilet, and the uses that poop can be put to.

While there is a lot of information presented, the writing style is very accessible for all readers. The amount of information is manageable, and the layout allows for lots of illustrations. Every chapter finishes with a “fast facts” page that summarizes the main points of the chapter.

Belle Wuthrich’s illustrations add a lot of humour to the book as well as providing a visual of some of the information being presented. Her expertise as a children’s illustrator can be seen in the lively illustrations ranging from anthropomorphic poops to diagrams of the digestive system.

It Takes Guts has a good glossary for terms that readers will need explained. Each term in the glossary is in bold text the first time it appears in the book and is defined both in the immediate text and the glossary. Definitions are kept simple and appropriate to the reading level. The index includes an explanation of what the index is for and how to use it. The index is comprehensive and breaks down topic areas well while including entries of interest. A good example is the entry for toilets which has the subtopics of best pooping positions, history of, smart toilets, and World Toilet Day. This will show readers the fun facts they can learn about the digestive system and where to find the information in the book.

Highly educational, fun to read, with lively and colourful illustrations, It Takes Guts takes readers on an entertaining journey through the complexity of the digestive system.