Get a Move On, Neuron!

Simplified, Not Simple - An Ambitious Effort

This brief monograph, (about 58 pages), is an ambitious attempt to present a basic description of brain function to interested and adventurous young readers who enjoy science and are willing to take on a bit of a challenge.

Rather than just offer a scaled down description of anatomy and function, Dr. Kennedy has taken a single task - responding to Mom's call to come down to dinner - and traces how the brain controls and directs the response to that call. What does the subject hear and understand? How does the brain receive, process and react to that call? How does it direct the body to get up and move? By laying out a complete sequence of events Dr. Kennedy takes the reader through a tour of most of the brain's functions and sketches out a clear and understandable map of brain anatomy and function.

This is an ambitious task. By framing the tour as he does the author necessarily has to slight some interesting issues, (memory, self-awareness, emotions and so on), in favor of others, (muscle control primarily), but that's pretty much an unavoidable consequence of the approach. And that said, Dr. Kennedy man'/ages to to include a number of brief but fasmagnificentcinating digressions. (I found the discussion of how the'hemo the body sends "fast" signals to overide usual traffic to avoid something like a trip-and-fall particularly interesting.)

Each brief chapter ends labs science films like with a series of questions that recap and review the material. This usually comes across as a bit patronizing or distracting. Here, though, it works. Just glancing through the questions reinforces the material and srves as a useful summary. In this book, the review questions approach really is valuable.

The illustrations are helpful. They aren't overly busy or cutesy, but since we are talking anatomy the charts, drawings and illustrated representations are helpful. A friendly looking neuron is a fine instructor and the vibe is very similar to those old Bell Labs "Hemo the Magnificent" style science films.

So, I firmly believe that even very young readers can read challenging science material. The recommended age of eight might be a bit of a stretch, but from that age up a motivated young reader should gather a good bit of interesting insight from this book. At a minimum it might very well encourage further and additional reading. A nice and unique find.

Please note that I received a free ecopy of this book in exchange for a candid review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.

I feel like this could have been done better, although part of that may be because my review e-book had a few display glitches. I think my biggest quibble is that the language is oversimplified. I realize that my eight-year-old is verbally advanced, but she likes to know the proper names for things, not just calling parts of the brain “the feeling place,” etc. The author does give those proper names, but continues to use the more generic terminology.

Overall, the photography is beautiful, the explanation of the basics of how the brain works is interesting (although it occasionally sounds condescending), and we enjoyed the little quizzes at the end of each chapter.

This review also at http://biblioquacious.blogspot.com/2016/06/nonfiction-for-all-ages.html

Thank you, NetGalley, for the ARC.

Cos'è un neurone? Come funziona? Come si collega ai suoi simili per dare vita a quell'organo straordinario che è il cervello?

Philip R. Kennedy, neurologo, risponde in maniera semplice e chiara, introducendo i bambini al misterioso funzionamento del cervello, e tramite di esso del nostro corpo.
Testi chiari e semplici immagini illustrative compongono un ottimo breve libro di medicina.

Get a Move On, Neuron! was a fantastic book aimed at young readers, focusing on learning all about how the brain works, using language and images that make sense for kids (and honestly, helped explain things to me, a not exactly scientific adult). I did find the cover a little cheesy and am not sure it did justice to the contents of the story, but that shouldn't deter anyone from picking this up.

In a time when parents are realizing more and more just how important it is for their children to be well educated, books like these are exactly what so many of us are looking for. I'll be sure to recommend this!

A brilliant and easy-to-understand approach to understand how the brain works. The expressive illustrations and the short but memorably texts describe the actions and the processes necessary to function and to understand things. As an adult but also as a child it is easy to understand and due to the catchy illustrations you can easily remember the explanations as well. I enjoyed reading this book and can recommend it to everyone who is interested in the matter and is looking for an easy and enjoyable approach.