THE BIG BOOK OF BUTTS

A breezy disquisition on a fundamental topic.

Manzano opens with a broad survey of human bottoms (“Every butt has its own personality. Some might be quite shy, while others are quite bold”). She goes on to probe the overall evolution of anuses from the Cambrian period on, as well as the glorious variety of colors, shapes, and functions enjoyed by the posteriors of modern creatures of land and sea. Giraffes place their necks on their “speckled butts” before going to sleep, while the Papilio xuthus butterfly has photoreceptors on its butt. Most memorably, she explains how animal butts send and receive messages using each of the five senses—or four, anyway: “Actually, you know what? Let’s skip taste. Ick!” Urberuaga has chosen to illustrate these easily grasped scientific observations (translated from Spanish by Ross) in a comical way, with cartoon figures of humans in diverse arrays of skin hue and body type, bare or sporting loudly decorated underwear, alternating with either detached butts endowed with faces and stick limbs or fanny-flashing wildlife from mandrills and manatees to dogs and sea slugs. “No two butts are alike,” Manzano concludes, but they all “love to dance.” Readers will have no trouble getting…behind that.

Cheeky fun, with bits of solid matter.