Digestion! the Musical Read online

  Text copyright © 2022 by Adam Rex.

  Illustrations copyright © 2022 by Laura Park.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available.

  ISBN 978-1-4521-8386-2 (hc)

  ISBN 978-1-7972-2103-8 (epub2)

  ISBN 978-1-7972-2105-2 (epub3)

  ISBN 978-1-7972-2104-5 (kindle)

  Design by Jay Marvel.

  Typeset in Brandon Grotesque, Slappy, and Archer.

  The illustrations in this book were rendered digitally.

  Chronicle Books LLC

  680 Second Street

  San Francisco, California 94107

  Chronicle Books—we see things differently.

  Become part of our community at www.chroniclekids.com.

  For my gastroenterologist, Dr. Bortuzzo.

  —A. R.

  For Loup Emile, Rafe, and Felix.

  —L. P.

  Body!

  Body!

  Body!

  Body!

  Your bones hold up your muscles, and your muscles make you go.

  And your heart will have to hustle just to get your blood to flow around your

  BODY!

  BODY!

  BODY!

  BODY!

  I’m finally here!

  It’s my big chance!

  Inside this body I am going to be something—something important!

  What?

  Who’s in there?

  Your blood goes to a boo-boo, and a boo-boo gives you pain.

  So your nerves will send the message of the pain up to your brain inside your

  BODY!

  BODY!

  BODY!

  BODY!

  I … I may be junk food, but I have a heart of gold!

  Give me a shot!

  Thank you!

  I won’t let you down!

  The brain is sent a signal that the tummy wants a treat,

  so it tells the mouth to open up and welcome something sweet inside the

  BODY!

  BODY!

  BODY!

  If your mouth has a congestion, our suggestion is digestion.

  We’ve done our introductions,

  and the title song is sung,

  so let’s check on Li’l Candy,

  sitting sweetly on the tongue.

  That’s her cue, but she’s debuting in a mouth that isn’t doing what it really should be doing—

  which is chewing

  which is chewing.

  Tonight’s the night—finally someone with an appetite!

  Now I’m

  here … but

  I can’t get a bite.

  Those tetchy teeth are giving me the brush-off, like they said—

  Swallowed down—

  just some podunk junk from goober town.

  But I want to make a difference!

  Gotta make this body stronger!

  I just know I have it in me

  if I stay a little longer.

  Surfin’ the esophagus!

  Surfin’ the esophagus!

  Soffin’ the esurphagus! (Whoops!)

  Surfin’ the esophagus!

  But by golly!

  All this teasing sure can make a crumb feel crummy.

  The esophagus has ended—one last wave and then I drop,

  and I splash into the mash inside the stomach, where I stop.

  What … what is this stuff?

  Whoa!

  What’s happening?

  How do you know all this, Gum?

  Is it because you’ve been stuck in here for years?

  Oh.

  Not if we have anything to say about it!

  Oh no!

  You’re our number one problem, Candy!

  So keep moving,

  you good-for-nothing!

  You bilious bonbon!

  But … how will I know I’m ready?

  Good question!

  Let’s study this thing, buddy: When you’re ready, then you’ll know ’cause a doorway in the stomach opens up and lets you go.

  And the pancreas and liver make these juices they deliver to the bendy duodenum that’s connected down below.

  All those juices have their uses.

  They break food up into pieces

  and those pieces into pieces,

  until all of it decreases to a size so teeny tiny it can get into your blood.

  The digestive system would be nothin’ without us to deliver the goods!

  Who said that?

  Aw, it’s just me—Little Red Blood Cell! I deliver oxygen from the lungs so the body can breathe, which reminds me—I gotta go!

  Tell ’em what you do, everyone!

  I’m White Blood Cell!

  Check it, please—

  I fight infection and disease.

  My name’s Platelet!

  If you’re hurtin’

  I make plugs to stop the spurtin’!

  But the part that should be gloating

  is the stuff in which we’re floating.

  Hey, I’m Plasma!

  Watch my flow!

  I’ll get you where you’ve got to go!

  B!

  L!

  O-O-D!

  Pumped out through an artery—

  It’s blood! (lub-dub, lub-dub)

  It’s blood! (lub-dub, lub-dub)

  I’m back!

  I travel all around this big body, day in, day out. It’s the heart that makes it happen.

  Okay, back in a minute!

  A bunch of tubes called vessels get it goin’ where it’s goin’.

  The heart’s a pumping organ.

  It starts our blood a-flowin’.

  These red and rushing rivers go all over, everywhere.

  They’re the system that delivers water, hormones, food, and air.

  BONES!

  MUSCLES!

  ORGANS!

  BRAIN!

  Send it back now in a vein!

  It’s

  (lub-dub, lub-dub)

  It’s blood!

  (lub-dub, lub-dub)

  And without blood, the body stops.

  All your buddies back there—kidneys, lungs, appendix, gallbladder—they don’t work without us!

  We even take out the trash!

  The food that’s done digestin’ gets absorbed from the intestine.

  Then it takes what we don’t need down to the kidneys to be peed.

  B!

  L!

  O-O-D!

  Keep it on the inside, G!

  It’s blood!

  (lub-dub, lub-dub)

  It’s blood!

  The blood does all that?

  Sure does!

  But … should the blood absorb a sweet thing like me?

  Ah, don’t listen to the haters, kid!

  A little candy every now and then never hurt anyone.

  GASP!

  Look at Candy!

  What?

  What’s going on?

  You’ve changed!

  Ohmygosh!

  I didn’t know it!

  I was candy,

  but below it

  (where nobody could have seen it)

  there’s a wholesome, healthy peanut!

  We were mean!

  We didn’t mean it!

  No one said there was a peanut!

  We all did. It’s just that … everyone here has a job to do.

  Everyone except Appendix.

  Hey.

  And it’s hard to do our jobs right when people don’t take care of themselves, you know?

  Somebody has to be the bad guy if we’re going
to keep this body good and healthy.

  So call me

  sometime,

  Snack.

  The small and large intestines are like tunnels through your body,

  and if food gets through it turns to poo that funnels to the potty.

  We’ve gotten to “the end,” my friend, and all that’s left to do

  is a big showstopping number (and that number … is a two).

  LET’S.

  GET.

  THIS.

  POTTY.

  STARTED.

  EVERYBODY PANTS DOWN!

  Goodnight.

  Li’l Candy’s tale has ended; now it’s curtains for our show.

  But let’s plan to meet next time you eat and have another go around the

  BODY!

  BODY!

  BODY!

  GLOSSARY

  APPENDIX: A small, tube-shaped organ attached to the large intestine.

  BLOOD: A red liquid that flows throughout the body, delivering oxygen and nutrients and collecting waste for removal. The blood contains

  PLASMA: The fluid that blood cells float in.

  PLATELETS: Cell pieces that make clots to stop bleeding.

  RED BLOOD CELLS: Cells that deliver oxygen.

  WHITE BLOOD CELLS: Cells that fight infection and disease.

  DUODENUM: The first part of the small intestine.

  ESOPHAGUS: A tube that connects the mouth to the stomach.

  GALLBLADDER: A small sac that holds bile until it’s needed in the small intestine.

  KIDNEYS: Two organs just below the rib cage that take waste out of the blood and send it to be peed out of the body.

  LARGE INTESTINE: A long organ that food enters after it’s gone through the small intestine. Here, water is absorbed, and the waste that’s left is sent down to the rectum to be pooped out.

  LIVER: A large organ next to the stomach that does a lot of things, including cleaning poisons out of the body and making bile. Bile is stored in the gallbladder and sent to the small intestine, where it helps with digestion.

  LUNGS: A pair of organs inside the chest. They take oxygen out of the air and send it to the bloodstream while pushing carbon dioxide, which we don’t need, out of the body.

  PALATE: The roof of the mouth.

  PANCREAS: A large organ behind the stomach that makes pancreatic juice, which helps break down food. The pancreas also helps control how much sugar is in the blood.

  PERISTALSIS: The flexing and relaxing of muscles in the esophagus, stomach, and intestines that moves food through the body.

  SMALL INTESTINE: A long, twisty organ where food goes after it’s gone through the stomach. The small intestine is where most of the helpful nutrients are absorbed from food.

  STOMACH: A hollow organ between the esophagus and the small intestine that partially digests food. The stomach mixes food with enzymes and acids that break the food down.

  APPENDIX

  Hello, yes, I just want to say that doctors no longer believe the appendix is useless— I am now understood to be a safe place for good bacteria.

  A “safe place.”

  Okay, thank you.

  ADAM REX is the author and illustrator of many beloved picture books and novels, including the New York Times–bestsellers School’s First Day of School and Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich. He has also illustrated the work of many other authors, including Jon Scieszka, Mac Barnett, Jeff Kinney, Kate DiCamillo, Eoin Colfer, Christopher Paul Curtis, Paul Feig, and Neil Gaiman. He lives in Tucson, Arizona. See more about him at www.adamrex.com.

  LAURA PARK is a cartoonist and the illustrator of the picture books Abner & Ian Get Right-Side Up and Unstoppable, plus many other books for young people. She is an American living in France. Her favorite food is any vegetarian dumpling in existence. Learn more at www.singingbones.com.

 

 

  Adam Rex, Digestion! the Musical

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