Masha Dyans - A Garden in Your Belly: Meet the Microbes in Your Gut

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A Garden in Your Bellys colorful world helped me wake upThis book is as powerful as it is beautiful!
-Eric Carle, author of The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Your belly is full of tiny creatures-and they love to eat! Along the river of your gut, tiny creatures move, eat, and grow. Learn more about the garden of microscopic flora growing inside the body and come on a journey that explains an important biological concept: the microbiome, the health of which affects everything in our bodies. Did you know that some foods are better for your microbiome (and you!) than others? Striking, original watercolor illustrations keep things from getting too gross. Informational back matter goes further into the science of the microbiome and reveals amazing facts about the gut.
This playful picture book asks children to imagine their intestines as a river, nourishing a garden in your belly full of life and wonder called the microbiome. The text touches on aspects of the microbiomes microorganisms, commenting on matters such as how they came to live there, how helpful or harmful they are, and how beneficial a varied garden can be. Kids initially squeamish about microbes in the gut may find themselves unexpectedly fascinated by the topic. While some indication of sources would be useful to bolster the authority of the text, it is competently written and reads aloud well. The books real strength, though, lies in the vividly colored, wildly imaginative, and joyful artwork, created with digitally enhanced watercolors. Some of these organisms are pictured as flowering plants while others resemble kids paintings of friendly little aliens. The illustrations will help children envision their own gardens of microbes in a new way and possibly even view them as worth nurturing with more water and better food. A lively introduction to a vital element in human health.-Booklist
The bacteria inside the human gut may not be the first thing that comes to mind as a topic for a childrens book, but Dyans has made the subject very approachable. The metaphors of a river and a garden are used to describe the intestines and stomach, allowing readers to visualize the microorganisms involved. The text explains how each persons unique mix of microbiota works to fight germs, harvest energy, and even influence your thoughts and feelings. Children are advised to eat healthy foods rather than feed the weeds (the bad microbes). Watercolor illustrations depicting the helpful inhabitants of the garden in your belly show them floating like lotus flowers, leaping like frogs, paddling boats, and talking on telephones. The weeds are rendered in dark colors with jagged teeth. In some scenes, they belch out smoke that chokes the helpers. Back matter balances the whimsical illustrations by offering more detailed explanations of the concepts. There is also a glossary of terms and a page of amazing gut facts. This would be an excellent book to share with a class studying health and nutrition. It could also be suitable for a child who is experiencing gastrointestinal issues and wants to understand what is happening in their own garden. VERDICT A good addition to collections looking to update their biology section.-School Library Journal
An attractive primer about the human microbiome.
The nature metaphor begins with the river flowing-ones intestine. This river has tight folds and turns, but if it were stretched out it would be ten times as tall as you are! It feeds and supports the garden in your belly. Tiny, gleeful, googly-eyed microorganisms fill the page. But as one particularly astute microbe asks, Where does your garden come from? Dyans explains how humans collect new microbes with everything they touch or eat. The blobby, kaleidoscopic creatures with wide, inviting ey