Breath of Life: Your Respiratory System Works by Flora Brett

It all begins with your first breath. All of systems of the human body are necessary, but the respiratory system is the sine qua non, the one without which nothing works. Its job, to provide oxygen for the body and to carry away carbon dioxide, the waste product of metabolism, is the beginning of all human activity.

How does it work? It's as plain as the nose on your face. Long, wide, sharp or pug, acquiline or freckled, its job is to warm or cool the outside air in the nasal cavity and filter the dust and other substances--from the perfume of a rose to disease germs and particles--removing them from the air with its mucus and cillia (tiny hairlike projections (as the breath passes down the pharynx (throat) over the larynx (voice box) through the vocal cords to the trachea (windpipe) and through the two bronchii that carry air into the air and finally to the alveoli where the respiratory system meets the circulatory system in the capillaries that take up the oxygen and drop off the carbon dioxide molecules in the blood. 

Intake is controlled by the movements of the diaphragm which pull down to increase the space in the chest, helped by the muscles in the rib cage. Then the process is reversed, the "used" air is exhaled, following the THIS WAY OUT signs! 

That's it! Mission accomplished! But what a mission it is, keeping 2500 gallons (7950 liters) of air per day coming and going. And, by the way, the respiratory system is also necessary for humans to talk and sing, cough and sneeze and snore. 

It's all there and more in Flora Brett's Your Respiratory System Works! (Your Body Systems) (Capstone Books). In this nonfiction book author Brett provides the correct scientific terms for the parts of the respiratory system and how they work within the rest of human physiology and points out some other considerations young readers should be familiar with--the importance of exercise in keeping the cardiopulmonary system healthy and the airborne problems that can occur with this system--asthma, bronchitis, allergies, infectious diseases such as COVID-19, and inhaled smoke from cigarettes, fires, and from pollutants--as well as ways to help avoid them. 

Brett's text is well-written for its readership, defining the Latin terms assigned to parts of the system, with simple language and definitive paragraphs, accompanied by excellent color cut-away illustrations and photographs of the anatomical terms described. As all proper informational book authors should, the author also includes a full appendix with glossary, bibliography, list of websites, and index to allow young scholars to breathe easy with their science reports in the early grades.