Book Review: Inside In: Xray's of Nature's Hidden World

Inside In: X-Rays of Nature’s Hidden World is a curious collection of images and interesting facts about the creatures in our world. It’s nature as you’ve never seen it…from the inside!

What’s Great!

There are so many things that I love about this book it is hard to narrow them down to the most important features!

It is such a unique and interesting combination of nature exploration and medicine – bridging such disparate branches of science seamlessly and it a way that is easily accessible to children.

That it is broken down into Class (taxonomy) chapters – with gorgeous x-ray images of each creature accompanied by a suite of interesting facts.

The accompanying text was written in a conversational tone that is easily accessible but also delivered incredible ‘bang for your buck’ interesting and unusual factual information.

The x-ray photographs are so unique and definitely serve the purpose the creators intended – prompting the reader to look closer. You could quite literally spend hours poring over these images and find something new with each exploration.

There is bonus information about x-ray photographs and imaging – learn about what x-ray photographs are, how they are made and who the inventor of x-ray imaging was. You also get some interesting facts about the background of the artist and physicist that created the images.

We also loved that it is a useful reference text with opportunities to practice using Index and Contents pages effectively – this is especially important for younger children to support their research skills.

We also loved that this book is beautiful and interesting enough to have a coffee table book! There aren’t too many children’s reference books that would fit this category but this one is definitely worth having some conversations over!

What I Didn’t Like!

There truly wasn’t much about this book that I didn’t like, from the moment I spotted it on the library shelf I just knew it was going to be great! But here are a couple of things I wondered about, and thought might be worth including (or adding).

I would have liked to see a few different examples of each creature type; it would be interesting to make comparisons of different ages, genders or even just see multiple x-ray images of the same thing – part of the beauty of nature is seeing its imperfections and that’s hard to do with only often a single example.

The black pages within the text are very shiny, which makes the x-ray image pop, but it is also very prone to fingerprint marks – which ends up destroying the viewing experience somewhat. We borrowed our volume from the library, so it had already had numerous readers no doubt, as evidenced by these pesky prints. A different type of paper finish might have prevented this.

I would like a sequel of this book that explores even more different creatures; and possibly more information on the x-ray imaging process and techniques, as this would be very interesting to explore.

Explorations Unlocked!

This gorgeous book had me completely enthralled from cover to cover and the whole family has pored over the pages numerous times. Even our youngest (only two) was so very curious about the striking images, and our Little Miss (as always) was full of questions! Explorations on our To Do List are:

Creating an X-Ray Imaging Pretend Play Corner (we’ve found a whole bunch of resources here!)
Exploring the anatomy of insects and animals more deeply (and of course, practicing our nature drawing)!
Reading more books and doing some research on x-rays (X-ray Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Creatures by Susan R. Stoltz), the author and illustrator of this book (Jan Paul Schutten and Arie van ‘t Riet) and reading some more books by the author (like The Mystery of Life: How Nothing Became Everything).
Looking at how x-ray technology is used in art. We found this cool website we really want to explore!
Learn about Aboriginal X-ray Art here, watch some drawing tutorials about x-ray art here, and create our own x-ray inspired art.

What I Think About This Book

By removing the distractions of gorgeous plumage, cute expressions and the familiarity of animals, insects, and marine creatures through x-ray imaging; the creators of this quirky museum of natural history are able to spark critical and creative thinking, urge us to observe more deeply, and highlight some truly fascinating observations of the animal kingdom! This is by far, one of the most interesting reads I have experienced this year and really highlighted the importance of creativity and innovation for us. Without this excellent collection we wouldn’t know that the chameleon is more than a colour-changing master, that there is a lizard called the Tegunosaurus Rex (and yes, its image looks very much like his dinosaur cousin!), how many different configurations of bones and exoskeletons are in our world, or how x-rays work and even came to be! I highly recommend exploring this remarkable dive into the very bones of our natural world; it could be the start of an interesting unit study, an extension to a nature walk, or the beginning of a lifetime of learning or working in medicine or science! Although this book is targeted children 6+, all ages will be intrigued by the incredibly detailed and unusual images; and the easily navigable chapters and ingenious way that the writer draws attention to the hidden details in each image makes wading into science a breeze!