The Truth about Poop

An informative and funny compendium of fascinating, weird, and gross facts about excrement takes readers from life before toilet paper to the most modern toilets and from poop games to poop used in warfare.

Grade 2-5–Chock-full of intriguing, gross, and bizarre facts about animal and human excrement, Goodman's free-range text discusses everything from Tyrannosaurus rex dung to the evolution of toilet paper. The three main sections outline animal elimination practices, the processes of human excretion and plumbing, and helpful uses for poop (e.g., for fertilizer or scientific research). While the quirky organization and lack of an index may not make this a useful resource for research, the subject matter will capture kids' attention and draw reluctant readers. Even though the cover illustration of an elephant on a chamber pot may make browsers think it is a potty-training book, the rest of Smith's retro cartoons in muted colors provide humor without being too gross. This is Taro Gomi's Everyone Poops (Kane/Miller, 1995) for the "Captain Underpants" (Scholastic) set.–Rachel G. Payne, Brooklyn Public Library, NY
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Step aside, Walter the Farting Dog. Science writer Goodman (Claws, Coats, and Camouflage) deserves a round of applause, and no raspberries, for demystifying a risky topic. With a winning combination of scientific curiosity and amusement, the intrepid author dives into her research. In a section titled "How Much?/How Often?," she gladly reveals the private matters of sloths, geese and bears. She finds that a skipper caterpillar "shoot[s] its poop... six feet" to misdirect predators, and that sharks hunt by scent (castaways should "poop in the life raft"). She chronicles human error and ingenuity in sewage disposal ("British plumber Thomas Crapper... certainly had the best name for the job" in creating the flush toilet, but was not its sole inventor), and she explores toilet paper substitutes from corncobs to a "cheap book of poetry" to "the frayed end of old anchor cables" aboard ships. In addition, she explains paleontologists' professional interest in "chunks of fossilized poop" called coprolites, suggests multiple uses for cow patties (kindling, Frisbees, bedding), discusses astronauts' euphemistic "maximum absorption garments" (aka diapers) and reveals military-strategic applications for "Dangerous Poop." While Goodman delivers the straight stuff about international and U.S. bathroom practices, demonstrating that scrupulous research can be fun, Smith (Raise the Roof!) creates vaudevillean cartoons that suggest their steamy subject but don't get too close. This scatological documentary could make a splash. Ages 7-up.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Gr. 4-6. It's time to bring poop out of the (water) closet, and Goodman does just that in a book that is very readable, appropriately visual, and exceedingly encompassing. Among the topics: how much and how often (for both humans and animals); the process of elimination; the history of the toilet and toilet paper; the sewage system; and the ever-popular subject of waste in space. The suspiciously named chapters "Poop Games" and "Poop Presents" talk about chip throws and gifts made from moose dung. There's even a page on--sorry--poop as food. Despite its giggle-provoking subject matter, the book is never sensational, treating excrement as the very normal topic that it is. The well-executed cartoon artwork successfully goes for the clever, but sometimes plays it close to the edge, as when Father Rabbit says, motioning to the main course, "No poop, no dessert." Naturally, kids will find all this marvelously gross, but along with the yuks, they'll get plenty of information. Even the endpapers are filled with facts: the ancient Romans had a goddess for toilets and sewers. Ilene Cooper
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