In Your Face: The Facts About Your Features - Hardcover

Donna M. Jackson is an award-winning author of many science books for young readers. Her works include the critically acclaimed Elephant Scientist,  Bone Detectives, Bug Scientists, and Wildlife Detectives--all honored by the NSTA/CBC's Outstanding Science Trade Book for Children award; ER Vets, an Orbis Pictus and ASPCA Henry Bergh honor book; and Extreme Scientists, named a Smithsonian Notable Book for Children, 2009.  Donna lives in Colorado with her husband, Charlie, and their family.

Starred Review. Grade 3-6–Using clear and understandable language, Jackson explains the physiology of facial features, their evolution, and their roles in survival and communication. She discusses the reasons why there are variations in features among races and how babies' faces endear them to their caregivers, thereby encouraging nurturing. A particularly interesting section deals with forensic techniques of modeling age progression in young children in cases of abduction. Also covered are prosopagnosia (a disorder that prevents people from recognizing faces, even those of family members and their own images) and Moebius Syndrome (a nerve disorder that prevents individuals from controlling their facial muscles, thus inhibiting smiling, blinking, and eye movement). Face painting, tattooing, and other cultural beauty enhancements are also mentioned. The final chapter deals with prosthetic parts, such as ears, and how they are made. With its well-captioned and colorful photos, logical organization, interesting topics, and profusion of ideas and information, this thin volume offers an unusual array of scientific and cultural concepts. The references within the text to various research studies show children how scientists obtain information and that studies can have contradicting conclusions. This book is an asset for any collection. Pair it with the Faces volume in Looking at Art (Grolier, 1996) to see how visages have been depicted in paintings from the Renaissance to the present.–Lynda Ritterman, Atco Elementary School, Waterford, NJ
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