What Do They Do with All That Poo?

Kurtz (Planet Jupiter) playfully delves into the diversity of dung found at the zoo in her latest picture book. “A wombat’s poo is cube-shaped, so it isn’t very roly. / Some snakes poop only once a year. They digest their food sloooow-ly.” Simple rhyming couplets deliver the facts, with accompanying sentences providing additional detail (e.g., “Wombats are highly territorial. They each deposit 80–100 droppings every evening as a signpost to say ‘I’m here.’ ”). The first half of the book discusses how various creatures take care of back-end business, while the second describes how zoos manage all that manure (much of it is trucked to landfills, while some is composted into “Zoo Doo,” among other things). The brightly colored, cartoon-style illustrations by Black (Barnyard Boogie!) add levity, as hippos grin, sloths smile, and bats beam. Poop of various sizes is buried, sniffed, squirted, weighed, and even thrown. Young readers going through a bathroom-humor stage should enjoy the topic and the book’s light tone but, whether appreciative, awed, or grossed out, all will come away informed. Ages 3–8. (June)