EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT POOP

The scoop on poop.

Cartoon art and cheeky text mark this as a potty-training book that uses humor to make young readers comfortable with toileting. The downside to this is that some may be a bit uncomfortable with the humor’s tone, which veers toward the gross and has little regard for privacy. On the former point, poop is likened to food: “Cows make huge poops like a pizza! And goats make little balls, like olives.” (Eeew.) On the latter point, the narrator, a boy who seems well beyond potty-training age, has a series of four spreads toward the end devoted to answering “What about me? What about you? How do we poop?” He’s first depicted running down a hallway clutching his backside, then sitting on the toilet while his sister brings a roll of toilet paper. Then, on a page with a closed bathroom door, text reads, “Sometimes a few little farts escape,” before a page-turn shows the boy, red-faced and straining while his sister and their cat literally cheer him on, complete with pompoms. The rest of the family joins in on the cheering on the next page when (“PLOP!”) he successfully poops. It’s a logical conclusion but an oddly public one for a child who seems decidedly older than the implied toddler audience. The narrator and his family present white.

Not a totally shitty book, but not the shit, either.