The comedian, whose diaries of his years as a junior doctor became a bestseller, talks about the ‘astonishing’ efforts of the NHS in 2020, and his new guide to the body for children
Adam Kay is pleased with the title of his new book, Kay’s Anatomy, but he acknowledges that it’s not a joke his target audience is likely to snigger at, for a while at least. A guide to the body for kids, it tackles everything from poo to mental health, reproduction to whether or not it’s safe to eat bogeys (sadly for parents everywhere, Kay informs his young readers that: “Yes they’re safe. Chew away!”). “It’s quite an unusual title because it’s a pun that not a single person who is of the correct reading age for the book will get,” Kay says . His Anatomy is chatty, educational and charmingly illustrated by Henry Paker. I’m a particular fan of his delightful interpretation of the hippocampus, which ignores Kay’s wise words that it’s “nothing to do with hippos, I’m afraid – or camping, for that matter”. The book is silly when it needs to be but also stuffed with information as it moves through every organ of the body, skin to brain, as well as taking on reproduction, death and, aptly for this moment in time, germs.
“I wanted it to be a fun textbook, to be an actual resource rather than anything too flimsy,” Kay says. “I wanted to trick kids into thinking they are reading something that is just funny and silly and disgusting, and hopefully through that, getting them interested enough that they’re also picking up stuff. And not just the stuff they need to pass their exams, but stuff that is difficult to talk about, that doesn’t get talked about enough, like body image. I’m talking about smoking and alcohol and things that they or their friends might be living with – diabetes, or epilepsy, or ADHD or even panic disorders or obsessions. That’s the idea behind it.”
The tragedy with the care homes was just totally heartbreaking, and totally avoidable
Continue reading...