Gross Things: From Your Head to Your Toes

by Pauline Cartwright

This title is part of Pearson's Bug Club - the first whole-school reading programme that joins books and an online reading world to teach today's children to read. In this book: Yuck! Find out all sorts of horrible facts about you! This title is suitable for ages 6-7 (White level)

32 pages, Paperback

First published August 28, 2010

About the author

Pauline Cartwright is a New Zealand author of children's literature. She has written novels, picture books, stories (including for radio), educational readers, and poems for children.

Cartwright was awarded the Choysa / QE11 Arts Council Bursary for Children's Writers in 1991 and shared the University of Otago College of Education / Creative New Zealand Children's Writer in Residence Fellowship in 2003 with David Hill.

Several of her books have been short-listed for New Zealand Book Awards, including Grow a Gift (1991) and Saved by Ryan Kane (1994).

She lives in Alexandra, New Zealand.

Reviews

[Daniel Cracknell · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great way to tell children about their bodies. 'Gross Things' is another success from the Bug Club Non Fiction series, as it covers such topics as where snot comes from and how much sweat comes out of your feet.

I used this book for guided reading with year 5 children and they thoroughly enjoyed reading about all of the 'Gross Things' our bodies do, whilst also learning to understand the features of a non-fiction text, such as glossaries, contents pages etc. It really is a great book to share as a group too because it allows for all of those "ooooh!" and "urghhh!" moments to be vocalised by children and for them to share the reaction with their peers.

This is serious fun and the language is not too challenging that it wouldn't sit comfortably in a year 4 class. I would encourage this for independent reading, too as children are simply fascinated with 'Gross Things'.