All About Poop
Is there really more to be written on the subject of poop? Everybody Poops established that it’s something we all do, but for those who need more information to satisfy their curiosity, enter All About Poop. This picture book takes readers right inside the human intestinal tract, with a young boy and his dog, to see what happens when digestion breaks food down and turns it into … well, let’s assume for the sake of propriety that you know how and where the story ends. No spoiler alerts needed here.
Kate Hayes writes with rhyming cadence but manages to get the scientific basics and all-important need for hand-washing in while keeping a beat you can tap-dance to. You’re dying for a sample, so here: “Poop comes in a mixture of all shapes and sizes. There are so many possible poop surprises!” And, shuffle-ball-change!
Illustrator Brenna Vaughan matches Hayes in both tone and content; she must have used several brown pencils conjuring up poop on the ground, in the toilet, traversing the colon, and even parachuting into a landfill (a “dump,” get it?). The boy and his dog are cute and have a sweet hipness about them, and Vaughan’s drawing of a group of apartments would be right at home on a greeting card if she erased the pipes running to a municipal sewage plant. Or possibly right at home as-is on a greeting card for a municipal sewage plant employee, a market that’s been woefully underserved by Hallmark.
Kids do love to explore gross things, and All About Poop doesn’t stint on the grossness. It’s also funny and informative, and may help cool a youthful obsession by explaining things in terms that are easy to understand. Let’s hope for the sake of parents that it isn’t requested as often as the greater works of Dr. Seuss, but just enough to get it all out of their little systems, as it were.
Reviewed by
Heather Seggel
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
