The Big Bang and Other Farts: A Blast Through the Past

In this work from previous collaborators Bird and Coppo (Whose Poo?), two rodent siblings reluctantly sit down with their father to watch a “very serious show... about some of the most important moments in history!” From a pitch-black screen, an announcer intones, “Before there was anything, there was just this silent space. Lovely and quiet. Not a single sound.” Well, except for one: “PFFFT!” After the unmistakable onomatopoeia for passing gas appears in a tiny green speech balloon, the screen fills with images of a newly birthed cosmos. Now the sibs are totally on board (“Best show ever!” one declares), and as the program portrays time marching on, it highlights additional small but evidently powerful farts as fueling major turning points, including dinosaurs’ “exSTINKtion” and the appearance of that enigmatic Mona Lisa smile. “I don’t understand this show at all,” Dad says—but even he eventually proves capable of a noteworthy emanation of his own, suggesting that whether or not history is doomed to repeat itself, the sound of its resonance is “PFFFT!” Gouache artwork has a cut-paper tableau quality, giving each scene a kind of history-book dignity that’s ripe for being mischievously undermined. Ages 4–8. (Aug.)