ReaditDaddy's Picture Book of the Week - Week Ending 20th October 2017 - "Illumanatomy" by Kate Davies and Carnovsky (Wide Eyed Editions)

Our first Picture Book of the Week this week is a fascinating look beneath your own skin...don't worry though, it's entirely painless!
The fantastic "Illuminature" books have previously wowed us with their 'hidden in plain sight' magical method of providing an incredible non-fiction book with a relatively simple but hugely effective 'magic lens' mechanic, to allow children to discover all of the details across each page spread by using a very clever three colour transparency set of lenses.

It sort of works in the way old 3D books used to, but with a twist - each colour reveals a different layer in the book, isolating the others.

It worked so well for animals and nature, but it works astonishingly effectively when you start looking at the human body in this way. Thus "Illumanatomy" slides comfortably into our Book of the Week slot with one of the best uses of this clever trick that we've seen to date.

The book allows you to examine the human body as never seen before, again with the same layer approach revealing your body, the muscles and then the skeleton beneath...

Hello handsome! Care to see what's underneath your face? Imagine that everyone walks around with all that lot tucked under their blusher all day!

It sounds pretty gruesome, in fact it feels a lot like those classic anatomy books that many a Biology student will be all too familiar with, but the results are truly mind bending. In fact you'd swear that this is what the three lens system could've been invented for.

Strange to think that so many romantic songs are written about this squishy life-pump, eh?

We spent hour after hour with this one. Though we've seen many, many approaches to teaching children about the human body - and some truly stunning illustrated books on the subject, we've yet to see anything that has engaged Charlotte as thoroughly as this book. The lens system becomes far, far more than a gimmick as you swap colours and see the eerie effect of spotting your skeleton underneath the flesh and muscles.

Jaw droppingly fantastic! Wide Eyed Editions have made us wide-eyed with wonder yet again!

Don't lose your head over how amazing this book is!

"Illumanatomy" by Kate Davies and Carnovsky is out now, published by Quarto / Wide Eyed Editions (kindly supplied for review)