You don't have to memorise anatomy one structure at a time
You're not bad at anatomy. You're a visual learner.
An anatomy book built for the exam, not for the shelf. Every structure on the drawing is numbered, and every number runs out to a blank line you fill in yourself — so the name ends up attached to a place instead of to a flashcard. Which is what the exam is actually asking about.
- Cover the key before you start and the page becomes a self-test.
- You write each name out, so the spelling gets rehearsed — practicals mark it.
- 264 pages, 200+ drawings, all ten systems. A&P 1 and A&P 2 in one book, no volume two.
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- ✓In stock — ships within 1 business day
- ✓Free US shipping — no minimum, no surprise at checkout
- ✓A&P 1 and A&P 2 in one book — all ten systems, no volume two
- ✓The One-Semester Guarantee — 90 days, and you keep the book
Your exam gives you a blank line. So does every page in this book.
A flashcard shows you the answer and your brain says yes, that one. That feeling is recognition, and it is genuinely satisfying. Cards are also very good at what they are good at — definitions, pairs, anything with a right answer on the back. Naming a structure with nothing in front of you is not on that list.
Because that is what the practical is. A pinned structure, a blank line and a pen. No options, no word bank to choose from, and in most courses the spelling is marked. You are not being asked to recognise anything. You are being asked to produce it, cold.
So the page is built the same shape. Every structure on the drawing is numbered, every number runs out to a blank line you fill in yourself, and the names sit in a key beside it.
Here is how to use that: cover the key before you start. Fill in every line you can from memory, then uncover it and correct yourself in a second colour. The ones you got wrong are now marked in a different colour, on the page, in your own handwriting — and those are the ones you actually need to revise.
Then you colour it, which takes long enough that you cannot skim it, and the name ends up attached to a place rather than to a card. Weeks later the page still works: cover your own answers, look at the numbers, and say them out loud. Same page, still a test.
What's inside
- All ten systems, in the order they're taught: skeletal, muscular, nervous, cardiovascular, respiratory, digestive, lymphatic and immune, endocrine, urinary, reproductive. Nothing held back for a volume two.
- Every structure numbered, every number on its own blank line. The instruction is printed on each plate — colour and/or label the structures using the key — so you're never guessing what the page wants from you.
- Several keyed diagrams on most spreads, not one. The shoulder and the wrist sit on the same pages, each with its own key, because that's how they get examined.
- A short explanation before each set of plates — what the region does and why the structures sit where they do, so you're not colouring shapes with no story attached.
- Cross-references at the foot of every spread, pointing at the other pages the same structures appear on. That's how you revise a system rather than a page.
- Some spreads are full-colour reference rather than colouring pages — the respiratory and digestive overviews, for instance. They're there to explain the system before you draw it, and it's worth knowing they aren't blank.
264 pages · 200+ drawings · 8.75 × 11.19 inches — large enough that the small structures are still worth colouring, with margin left to write your professor's wording beside them.
This is what a finished page looks like
Why this and not one more app
| Feature | This book |
A study app |
Cards you make yourself |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | $59.90 once |
$39 a month |
your evenings |
| Across one semester | $59.90 | $136–156 | every week, all term |
| Makes you produce the name, not pick it | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Rehearses the spelling they mark you on | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Shows where it sits, not just what it's called | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Several keyed views on the same spread | ✓ | sometimes | ✗ |
| Still yours next term | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
The second row is the whole argument. Most of your cohort is paying a study app somewhere between $34 and $39 a month, which lands between $136 and $156 across one semester — for something that stops working the day the card declines. This is one payment, it never renews, and it is on your desk when you sit A&P 2.
And if you already pay for the app, keep it. This is not a lecture library and does not pretend to be one. It is the thing you write in while you watch one — and it is the half of your studying that is still there in the spring.
This is not extra studying. It replaces some.
You do not have a spare hour, and this does not ask for one — that is the design, not a concession. You were already going to rewrite that section of your notes, or make another stack of cards for a lab you have not sat yet. This is that time, spent somewhere it lands. It is not added to your week.
Then it stops being a study session at all. People do it on the sofa with something on in the background, in ten-minute pieces, in the gaps they already have. That is why it gets finished while the app subscription sits unopened — it asks for the attention you have left at nine o'clock, not the attention you wish you had.
Who it is for, plainly. The people who have always said "I'm a visual learner" and were half-apologising when they said it. The ones who remember where something was on the page. The ones who have highlighted a chapter twice and still gone blank at the pin. If that is you, this is built the way your head already works.
What it is not. It is not a replacement for your course, and it will not do the learning for you. It is the part that makes the learning stay. Give it ninety days — if it has not earned its place on your desk, we refund it and you keep the book.
You already know which system you're weakest at.
That's the page to open first. Ten minutes, one system, tonight — and it's time that chapter was going to take you anyway. Nothing about tonight decides the grade. It decides how much of this is still ahead of you at the end of term.
Or the book on its own at $59.90. Either way: 90 days to change your mind, and you keep the book.
Questions students actually ask
Does it cover every system, or just the popular ones?
All ten: skeletal, muscular, nervous, cardiovascular, respiratory, digestive, lymphatic and immune, endocrine, urinary, reproductive. A&P 1 and A&P 2 are both in there. There is no volume two, and nothing important is being held back for one.
How do I know which colours to use?
Every plate carries a key: the structures you're meant to colour and label, numbered to match the drawing — and where it matters anatomically, which colour to use. The rest is yours. Most people end up with one colour per structure and stick to it across the whole system, which is what makes the parts stay separate in your head.
Will the markers bleed through?
Coloured pencils and gel pens are the safe answer on paper like this — that's why the kit includes a water-based set rather than solvent markers.
What will show through is a heavy alcohol marker: a Sharpie, a Copic, anything that smells of solvent. That's true of every book in this category, not just this one, and it's worth knowing before you ruin a plate you spent forty minutes on. If you want to be certain, test on the inside back cover first.
How do I know the labelling is actually right?
Fair question, and you should be asking it. The cheap end of this category is full of self-published books whose own reviews say the labels are wrong page after page — which is worse than useless, because a structure you learn wrong now is one you'll name wrong in the exam without ever finding out which one it was.
This is not one of those. It's a DK title — an established reference publisher — now in its second edition, drawn and edited by people who do this for a living. And if you ever do find something wrong with your copy, tell us and we'll replace it or refund it, no argument.
Which one should I get?
If you already own pencils or markers you like, take the book on its own at $59.90. If you don't — or you've wrecked a book with the wrong pen before — take the kit at $69.90. The study pair at $109.90 is two complete kits: $30 cheaper than buying them separately, and the person quizzing you learns it twice.
I'm not a nursing student. Is it still for me?
Yes, and you're in good company. The same plates get used in massage-therapy programmes, yoga teacher training, EMT and paramedic courses, radiography, PT and OT prerequisites, personal-training certifications, and by illustrators who want the muscles under the skin in the right place. Anatomy is anatomy. The exam on the other side of it is the only thing that changes.
Can I buy it for someone else?
Most weeks somebody does — a parent whose daughter is retaking A&P, a friend starting a programme in the autumn. If you're sending it as a gift, send the kit rather than the book on its own. Nothing is more deflating than being handed something you can't start until you've been to the shop.
When will it get here?
Orders leave us within 1 business day and arrive in 3–5 business days in the US, with tracking either way. If you have an exam inside that window, email us before you order and we'll tell you honestly whether it will make it — we would rather lose the sale than have it land the day after.
$59.90? I've seen coloring books for a lot less.
You have, and they're a different object. Thinner, no explanation of what the region does before you colour it, no cross-references to the other pages the same structures appear on, and — going by their own reviews — labelling you can't trust. That last one is the flaw you cannot see until it has already cost you marks.
And the comparison that actually matters isn't a cheaper book. It's the study app most of your cohort is paying $34–39 a month for — roughly $136–156 across one semester, and gone the day the card declines. This is one payment, it never renews, and it's still on your desk when you sit A&P 2.
What if it doesn't work for me?
The One-Semester Guarantee. Use it for ninety days. If it hasn't helped, email us and we refund the whole thing. Keep the book — we're not going to ask you to post back something you've already coloured in, and we're not going to make you explain yourself.
Ninety days is deliberate: it's long enough to cover a full set of midterms, which is the only honest test of whether this worked. Worst case, you're out nothing and you keep the book. Best case, you walk into the exam having already produced every name on that table once, from memory, in your own handwriting.
Real students. Real semesters.
What students are saying
4.7
12,432 verified reviews
"Covering the key before I start is the whole thing. I have to come up with the name myself and then find out if I was right. That's the exam."
"Our practical is pinned structures on a cadaver with no word bank and they take marks off for spelling. Writing every name out by hand is the only reason I passed it."
"I am such a visual learner and nothing was landing from the lecture slides. Ten minutes on one plate and I still had it a week later."
"I failed A&P 1 in the spring and it knocked me out of the application cycle. Retaking it now with this and the difference is not subtle."
"Bought it in July so anatomy wouldn't blindside me in week one. Started with the skeletal system on the sofa. Best decision I made all summer."
"My anatomy credits expired and I had to retake the whole course eleven years later. This got the muscles back faster than the textbook did."
"I bought it for my daughter, first year nursing. She compared the plates to her class handouts and said some of ours had more on them."
"Got the two pack with a friend from lab. We colour the same system, then cover our answers and quiz each other off the numbers. Quizzing her is when I find out what I don't know."
"Four stars only because I want a spiral version that lies flat while I colour. Nobody advertised one, so I can't really mark it down. The book itself is as described."
"The markers don't ghost through to the next plate, which I did not expect. I've ruined a coloring book that way before."
"Massage school. The muscles were the wall for me, and having the shoulder and the wrist keyed separately on the same spread is what finally sorted them out."
"Three stars is honestly on me. I ordered it in June telling myself I'd get a head start and did not open it until the week before the practical. Works fine when you actually use it."
"I don't have a spare hour and this never asked for one. Ten minutes in the evening with something on in the background, and it got finished."
"It replaced the two hours a week I used to spend rewriting my notes into flashcards. Same time, and I actually remember it now."
"I was paying $39 a month for a study app and barely opening it. This was one payment and it's still on my desk for A&P 2."
"Rad tech prereqs. I did the whole cardiovascular system before the semester started and walked into that unit already knowing it."
"The key tells you exactly which structures to colour, so I never sit there deciding where to start. Sounds trivial. It's the reason I actually open it."
"My professor picked it up off my desk and said the labelling was cleaner than the atlas he assigns. That was the moment I stopped second-guessing the price."
"I'd bought a cheap one before this and half the leader lines pointed at nothing in particular. You get what you pay for and I learned it the expensive way round."
"Yoga teacher training. Not an exam in sight, I just wanted the muscles to be in the right place in my head. It does that and it's calming to do."
"EMT course. The nervous system pages did in two evenings what four passes through the chapter hadn't."
"I cover my own answers and go back through the numbers out loud on the bus. Same page, still a test, weeks later."
"Bought it for my son and he hasn't let me near it since, so I'm reviewing slightly blind. Four stars on his say-so and the fact he's still using it in week nine."
"I could recognise everything on a flashcard and then went blank at the pin. This is the first thing that trained the other direction."
"PT school prereqs at 34, going back after a decade in another job. It did not make me feel like the oldest person in the room."
"Two stars because my dog got hold of it in week two and ate most of the muscular system. Entirely my fault for leaving it on the sofa. Reordering."
"OT programme. I take my lecture notes straight onto the plates now instead of in a separate notebook. It's become the one thing in my bag."
"Six years on the floor and starting my NP program. Wanted a refresher that didn't feel like a textbook. This was it."
"Studying stopped feeling like drowning. That sounds dramatic and I mean it literally."
"I've sent it to four people in my cohort. Two have already ordered, one borrowed mine and never gave it back, which is its own kind of review."