HEARTBEAT

Using a combination of poetic language and supplemental prose paragraphs, the author relates facts about the hearts and heartbeats of a dozen different animals—including human beings.

Bold, bright, full-color art accompanies each double-page spread. On the first, the image of what appears to be a mammal’s heart supports the artist’s bio, which notes the influence of mid-20th-century design and color. Accompanying it, 11 lines of text, displayed in center alignment, briefly describe a heart’s function and then dwell on the heartbeat as the “unmistakable sound of a tireless muscle….Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Lub-dub.” That particular onomatopoeia is used for the heartbeats of an octopus, a python, and a human being. (Boyle doesn’t attempt this device for the heartbeat of an Etruscan pygmy shrew—an astonishing 1,500 beats per minute.) Each animal’s spread is worth a good deal of attention, both for the information itself and for the use of different kinds of poetic devices. There is humor, too; no one should miss the funny rhymes about the “relaxed” camel and its “untaxed” heart. Although comparisons among an astonishing range of heartbeats and types of hearts are part of the fun, the sheer amount of words, concepts, and literary play makes this perhaps better suited for reference—in terms of both science and language arts—than as a one-sitting read. Some readers may be taken aback at the omission of bears from the list of the “only four mammals in North America that hibernate.”

Heartily inspiring.