What Body Part Is That?

What Body Part Is That? by Andy Griffiths & Illustrated by Terry Denton is the latest in the children's series of books by this illustrious pair. It is difficult to classify this one, is it a novel (in the traditional sense), a comic, an illustrated guide? However it may be classified, it is more a series of notated drawings and images than narrative. It would seem that Terry Denton has had more of a hand in writing this book than Andy Griffith.

Griffiths and Denton have collaborated on 12 works prior to this one, with the most recent reviewed by us being The Very Bad Book. Whereas we were impressed by The Very Bad Book, we are not so impressed by this one. Although it could be argued it was written for it's audience - pre to early teens - who love the irreverence of these books, it just seems to miss the mark for us. They do acknowledge in their Introduction that the book is "100% fact free", lacks "scientific accuracy" and is "nonsense". Given the popularity of Griffiths' works this one could have been a perfect vehicle to be both educative and entertaining, a missed opportunity maybe?

In essence, the book looks at 68 body parts via notated drawings and some nonsense narrative (some of it repetitive). We did like the piece on the "Funny Bone" and thought the coverage of the "Chin" was a bit suspect.

What Body Part Is That? should not necessarily be totally written off as this reviewer had his early interest in reading piqued by a regular dose of Mad Magazine, so anything that can contribute to children enjoying reading more is a positive.