IF YOU ARE OFFENDED BY GROSS BODILY functions, please stop reading here. Or here.
Even here would do. But go no further. For the love of all things bright, beautiful and lemon-scented, TURN THE PAGE NOW!
Still with us? Okay, but don't say we didn't warn you. Here are the facts: Sylvia Branzei, 37, a teacher at the public, 70-student Whale Gulch School in rural Mendocino County, Calif., decided that kids needed straight answers to some of life's big questions—like "Why do we puke?" "What are zits made of?" and "Why do my feet smell so bad?" So she wrote Grossology, a cartoon-illustrated, 80-page Baedeker of bodily emissions. "It works as a tool in keeping kids' attention," says Branzei, whose background includes a B.S. in microbiology from the University of Michigan.
Some may question the book's contribution to academia—"It grabs kids' attention, but I don't think what it gives them is science," says Dr. Gerry Wheeler of the National Science Teachers Association—but there's no question that Branzei was right about children's interest in gross physiology. Published last November, Grossology—tastefully decorated with a patch of fake vomit on the cover—sold 25,000 copies by Christmas and is still hot. "It blew out the doors," says Carla Parker, a buyer at Barnes & Noble.
This will most likely mean a tidy, six-figure windfall for Branzei, whose husband, Byron Velasquez, is a carpenter (his two teens from an earlier marriage helped vet the book). She plans to donate much of the money to environmental organizations. "Life has been crazy," she says. "You write about farts and boogers, and look what happens."
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