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Cover of Inside Me: What I'm Made Of, illustrated by Leah Bury
Inside Me · Book 1

What I'm Made Of

The book starts on a child's own hand and keeps going in, past what eyes can see, to the cells packed underneath, then into one of those cells as far as the DNA. It ends back on the hand. This is the first of the Inside Me books.

$16.99Paperback, 48 pages
  • Ages2 to 5
  • Pages48
  • Size8.5 × 8.5 in, paperback
  • IllustrationFull color
  • Written byLeah Bury, PhD, cell biologist and science illustrator

Look inside.

Three spreads from the book, as printed.

Book spread: the magnifying glass over a hand, showing skin cells fitted together like tiles

Skin cells, the first thing the magnifying glass finds.

Book spread: a full-color animal cell with its organelles, seen through the magnifying glass

One whole cell, about halfway through.

Book spread: chromosomes in two colors, one set from each parent

Chromosomes, half from each parent.

About the book

What happens in it.

Under the magnifying glass the skin turns out to be cells fitted together like tiles, and from there the book goes looking at other cells, long like ropes in the muscles, branching like a tree in the brain. Then it goes inside one cell, to the nucleus, and to the instruction book folded up small in the middle of it, which unwraps into chromosomes and then into DNA.

Half of that instruction book came from each parent, which is why a child's eyes and hair and smile look the way they do, and then the magnifying glass comes back out through the cell and the skin to the hand it started on.

Pack 1 · The Animal Cell

The cell plus seven organelles, as printable cards, a matching game and coloring sheets. Free.

More books

The other four.