Have you seen Inside Out or Inside Out 2? Both of those movies did a fabulous job in explaining emotions. They were especially effective with those complicated ones, like anxiety and jealousy. The Gland Factory: A Tour of Your Body’s Goops, Juices and Hormones is the literary sibling by another mother to those movies. This is a book that’s funny, legitimately LOL funny on so many levels that you’ll begrudgingly find yourself learning something in-between a chuckle, grin, guffaw or laugh. Author Rachel Poliquin proves that she knows her audience because The Gland Factory is sufficiently gross enough to attract upper-elementary through middle school readers.
When I was a kid, actually-as a reader now, the gross, or unique factor is one that I relied on to get my reluctant reader self into a book. If it was funny, brightly colored or unique in some way, I was attracted to it. I still remember my senior year in high school, where I almost didn’t graduate, because I was too stubborn to read Of Mice and Men. Thankfully, books, and my reading curiosity have come a long way since then. I state all of that to drive home the point that there are poop jokes galore in The Gland Factory. Just don’t tell reluctant readers that they’re handled under the guise of a place where the stomach, liver, gall-bladder and pancreas do their thing. That could sound too educational, and they might not be able to handle it…
The Gland Factory lives somewhere in the Venn Diagram of comedic graphic novel, comic book mayhem, health book, best friend (who gives it to you straight), and dry comedy 101.
My word wall for the previous sentence has ‘comedy’ as the winner. (book was disqualified) There’s a sense of madness, a la Mad Magazine in this book. It allows things to go sideways, just enough to Venus fly trap those reluctant readers before they realize they’re reading.
Readers meet the boss, the deputy, workers and germs, all of whom are in the factory that resembles a mechanical human. It’s a map that will remind readers of a certain age of Billy from The Family Circus, with different parts of the ‘body’ labeled in sometimes fun and disgusting ways. The Snot Shower is the nasal glands. The Hormone Storehouse-West Wing is the Pituitary Gland and the Anterior Lobe. The Main Control is the Hypothalamus. This is where we need to stop and remind people that The Gland Factory is a smart book (graphic novel?) and it’s ok if you don’t know something in it. There were multiple facts on each page that I had long forgotten or never knew.
I was reminded of what a diuretic is, but never knew that my hypothalamus creates a W-shaped key that produces an Anti-Diuretic Hormone. I knew what melanin was, but didn’t have any idea how it knows when to do what it does.
In The Gland Factory, the body is under attack, and the germs’ presence is around every corner. They love to put graffiti up around the building and are constantly mocking things. Germz Rule. Yer Butt. King germs, germs in disguise as workers, germs swimming in your urine, germs crawling on the pipes in an otherwise healthy area of the factory can all be found if you look hard enough.
So it’s like Where’s Waldo, but with germs? No, not really, The Glad Factory is more fun than that.
The Gland Factory is the body’s go-to graphic novel that you never had as a kid, but secretly wish existed. The adult you is reading it and going back in your mind-time machine. The 10-year-old you would become a doctor, like Doogie Howser, but with much more money. You’d find cures to diseases and have the wherewithal to retire comfortably. However, you’d still work 20 hours a week on those challenging cases that even House couldn’t solve.
It’s fun to read this book. It’s not even reading. It’s like the words are coated in butter, chocolate or ice. They’re then put in your mind funnel before getting sucked into your knowledge hole. When The Gland Factory ends too quickly you’ll go back re-read parts of it, research more aspects and see if there are more books by the author and illustrator (there are).
The Gland Factory: A Tour of Your Body’s Goops, Juices and Hormones is by Rachel Poliquin with illustrations by Clayton Hanmer and is available on Greystone Kids.
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