Micro Mania: A Really Close-up Look at Bacteria, Bedbugs, and the Zillions of Other Gross Little Creatures That Live in, on, and All Around You

Get ready to be grossed out!

Try not to panic, but a million creatures are crawling all over your skin--wriggling on your legs, your neck, your scalp...everywhere! And that's only on the outside of our bodies. Trillions more of these itty-bitty things are thriving INSIDE!

Here's a big treat for every kid who loves the squirmy, icky, buggy, and the generally gross. Sensationally designed, with eye-opening, jaw-dropping photography, MICRO MANIA takes a close-up look at a world that's mostly invisible to us. It's an amazing universe that comes into astonishingly large-scale focus on these spectacular pages--which showcase everything from luminescent, furry-green bacteria and flowerlike virus cells to maggots, mold, and more.

But this is more than just a collection of mind-blowing images; it's solid science that encourages children's natural curiosity. They'll find out about the great scientists who discovered the existence of microbes; see how bacteria travel and reproduce; peek at some of the insects that make themselves at home in our kitchens, bathrooms, and bodies; and learn why some germs are good and others make us ill--and what we can do to stay healthy. By the time they've finished taking this voyage through nature's miniature universe, kids will fully understand why even the tiniest of creatures--from foot fungus and salmonella to blood-sucking bugs and organisms squiggling in a pond near you--can have a really big impact on our lives.

Jordan D. Brown has written award-winning books, articles, and websites for children, teachers, and parents. His clients include Scholastic, Sesame Workshop, TIME for Kids, and Thirteen/WNET. His nonfiction work includes Robo World, a biography of a robot designer; his children's fiction includes Just Kidding! and Animal E.R. Brown has written science articles, games, and humorous songs about astronomy, paleontology, marine biology, and much more for the American Museum of Natural History's kids website, OLogy. Brown has also served as Educational Consultant for a variety of preschool children's shows, including The Mr. Men Show (Cartoon Network), Dinosaur Train (PBS), My Friend Rabbit (NBC), and Miss Spider’s Sunny Patch Friends (Nickelodeon).