We depend on them every day—vision, smell, taste, hearing, and touch. Without our five senses, we wouldn’t know where we are or what’s happening around us. As important as the senses are, they are only the beginning of a communications network that allows us to experience and react to things. Our senses flash messages that race along the nerves to the spinal cord and on to the brain. The brain instantly interprets these messages and tells our bodies how to respond. Like a telegraph system, this network of brain, spinal cord, and nerves operates twenty-four hours a day, so the wonders of the world can unfold through our senses. In text, photographs, and informative diagrams, young readers will learn fascinating details about these miraculous workings of the human body. (National Geographic, 1984)

“Describes the workings of the sense organs and explains how the brain and nerves receive and process their messages.” —Library of Congress

Cited by the American Library Association for excellence in publishing for children and young adults.