Tastes Like Music: 17 Quirks of the Brain and Body

by Maria Birmingham, Monika Melnychuk (Illustrator)

Overview

Humans may all look pretty much the same on the outside, but some people have unique conditions and amazing abilities! Whether it’s having no fingerprints at all (adermatoglyphia), hearing music every time you taste chocolate (synesthesia), or being able to see one hundred million colors (tetrachromacy), some conditions bring our understanding of the human body to another level entirely. An unparalleled tour of the hows and whys of these extraordinary human conditions, Tastes Like Music is accessible and playful. Each section presents an awe-inspiring snapshot of the biology behind one of 17 quirks, while short interviews with people affected by these conditions (including the author!) provide windows into real-life experiences. The book takes a balanced approach, highlighting the pros and cons of each condition and providing plenty of general facts about the human body. Readers will delight in the illustrations throughout and come away with a new appreciation for all the weird and wonderful things the human brain and body can do.

Grade: 6
Fountas & Pinnel: X
Lexile Measure: 1010L
Common Core State Standards:
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RST.6-8.1,2,4,5,6,7,8,9,10
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.6.1,1a,1b,1c,1d,2,3,4,5,6

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781771470834
Publisher:	OWLKIDS BOOKS
Publication date:	10/14/2014
Pages:	40
Product dimensions:	9.30(w) x 7.10(h) x 0.20(d)
Lexile:	1010L (what's this?)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

A longtime contributor to OWL and chickaDEE magazines, Maria Birmingham has written numerous features and recurring sections for both, as well as served as the managing editor of OWL. She lives in Brampton, Ontario. Illustrator Monika Melnychuk’s work has appeared in numerous publications. She lives in Toronto.

Editorial Reviews

"An intriguing introduction to the body's outside-the-norm capabilities."
– Publishers Weekly

"The attractive format, casual with brightly colored pages and cartoonlike illustrations on each spread, combines with the high-interest topic to make it appear readily approachable ... an entertaining presentation of a fascinating topic."
- Kirkus Reviews

"The colorful illustrations, eye-catching layout, and high-interest subject matter combine to make this hard to put down..."
— Booklist

"This book will provide fun facts about extreme conditions that some humans experience... Each content area starts with an attention-grabbing title; the colorful illustrations and page layout make it student-friendly."
— Library Media Connection

From the Publisher

07/07/2014
Birmingham explores flukes in body function à la Oliver Sacks, even offering herself as a case study (the author has congenital anosmia, or no sense of smell). Synesthesia, amusia (the inability to interpret and enjoy music), and tetrachromacy (heightened color acuity) are among the aberrations explored in short sections amid Melnychuk’s caricatures of hip-looking teens. Real-life individuals are profiled in short q&a sections: “I cannot picture the faces of the people I love, not even those of my children,” explains a Kansas woman with face blindness. It’s an intriguing introduction to the body’s outside-the-norm capabilities. Ages 8–12. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

2014-08-20
What if you couldn't remember a face—even your own? Imagine not being able to forget anything from your past. What if you had Barbie-doll hair, so stiff you couldn't possibly comb it? Birmingham takes readers through an amazing variety of offbeat conditions, most of them inherited and some of them extremely rare. While this brief effort packs in ample information, the attractive format, casual with brightly colored pages and cartoonlike illustrations on each spread, combines with the high-interest topic to make it appear readily approachable. However, the vocabulary level and the explanations of the causes for some of the conditions are relatively complex. Some of the conditions—or "quirks" according to the subtitle—include developmental topographical disorientation, which causes sufferers to fail to recognize familiar surroundings, making it possible to get lost in one's own home; double-jointedness; sleepwalking; color blindness; heightened ability to taste; and synesthesia, a condition that associates numbers, letters, words or music with colors. Many of the topics include a "What's it like?" section: a brief, informative interview with a person who has that condition. Additional facts are tucked into boxes throughout, like the stages of sleep, types of joints in the human body and the anatomy of a hair follicle. An entertaining presentation of a fascinating topic that's more substantive and challenging than it looks. (Nonfiction. 10-14)

Kirkus Reviews