Continuing in the trend of Belches, Burps, and Farts--Oh My! and The Butt Book by Artie Bennet isPoopendous!, a book that tackles an even less "acceptable" subject than gas or butts: excrement. Fictional Professor Pip Poopdeck guides the reader through the book's "putrid and shocking and horrid" subject in hopes of teaching that excrement is more than just the thing that humans hide out of sight in a septic tank (or porta-potty, latrine, etcetera).

There's an "everybody poops" element here as the good Professor talks about how--you guessed it--everyone and almost everything (at least as far as animals a toddler knows about goes) does it, teaching some more unique words for specific types of excrement (guano, dung, flyspecks) and talking about characteristics of some of the more unusual types of animal droppings (wombats cubes, wet bird poop). And once that's out of the way, the book moves on to discussing--in rhyme, of course--how dung is used around the world and in the animal kingdom. It talks about dung beetles (how could it not?) and fertilizer, endozoochory and territorial marking via scat, and how the Mongolians and Masai use dung in their construction, as well as some of humanity's sillier uses for poop.

Essentially, it's a frank but funny look at poop that attempts to utilize most children's love of potty humor as an opportunity to learn. I'd say it does a good job of normalizing the subject and manages to avoid making it seem too gross, though I wouldn't be surprised to hear that some parents/teachers comfortable with Belches, Burps, and Farts--Oh My! and The Butt Book might still have some trouble with the idea of reading an entire book about poop.

On the other hand, the three books come together to make an amusing trilogy of educational potty humor, each revolving around the rear in some capacity. I definitely recommend checking out all of them if you think they're the type of thing you and your children/students might be interested in (or you have already read/enjoyed one of them); personally, I'd start with Butt before moving on to Belches and then Poop, but that's just me.

I'm going to be on the lookout for more humorous edutainment books like this in the future, so if you have any recommendations, feel free to let me know below!

The Butt Book was absolutely adorable. If you happened to read my review of Belches, Burps, and Farts--Oh My! by the same author, this book is much in the same vein as that. Both are humorous, education books about topics that might be a bit taboo in a lot of families, schools, or other environments but provide easy giggles to youngsters around picture book age.

The Butt Book was every bit as good as Belches, Burps, and Farts--Oh My!, quickly rolling through a lot of information--from some global words for "butt" to a brief look at some interesting animal butts to the various human uses for the butt (kid-friendly, of course!)--with cute rhymes and some wacky drawings (I'm particularly fond of the picture of an absolutely deadpan, disinterested bald eagle with the most hilariously overemphasized butt--it's amazing). As with Belches, Burps, and Farts, I imagine kids are going to giggle their way through this and pick up some fun facts along the way. And I doubt they're going to forget what they learned any time soon.

I definitely recommend this to any parent looking for a fun but educational read for their children or students, and I'd say that it's a great idea to read it in conjunction with Belches, Burps, and Farts--Oh My!. They make a surprisingly great set, and I'm thinking I'm going to need to keep an eye out for more of this style of educational picture book. They're quite fun to read--totally the kind of thing I would've loved as a kid--and I'd love to be able to at some point create and share a list of recommended "edutainment" books. In the meantime, I'll be reading Bennett's Poopendous!next; hopefully it's just as good.