You're Full of Genes

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

“Holey moley! Did you know your body is made up of millions and
millions and billions and billions and trillions and trillions of genes?
Even your finger. Look at it. You can’t see them because they’re so
small, but those genes are there.”

Let’s face it, the days of the birds and the bees are gone. Now, when
a youngster asks where do babies come from, the proper response is:
“When your TTAGCAGTATAT meets a nice ttagcagta-tat, the two of them
settle down to start baking a little genetic code. Know what I mean?”
If the answer is no, then you need this book.

Author Claudia Zylberberg holds a Ph.D. in biotechnology with a
specialty in designing educational material for science museums. Years
of explaining complex scientific theories to the public has honed her
writing skills so that readers as young as eight can easily follow her
text. Especially fun are the interactive sections where children can
insert photos of their parents and themselves into the text and see how
genes mix and match to turn out a unique human being.

Zylberberg manages to maintain a light tone in her prose without losing
her scientific focus. Marlene Davis’s brightly colored cartoonish
illustrations will also grab the reader’s attention. Highly
recommended.