View source for The Poo That Animals Do by Paul Mason and Tony de Saulles

{{Infobox1
|title=The Poo That Animals Do
|sort=Poo That Animals Do
|author=Paul Mason and Tony de Saulles
|reviewer=Ruth Ng
|genre=Children's Non-Fiction
|summary=Funny ''and'' educational...what more could you want?!
|rating=5
|buy=yes
|borrow=yes
|pages=32
|publisher=Wayland
|date=September 2017
|isbn=9781526303943
|website=https://paulmasonwriter.com/
|video=Z8iBmnBg1hw
|cover=Mason_poo
|aznuk=1526303949
|aznus=1526303949
}}

I know, I know, sometimes you really don't want to encourage your children's poo jokes, but this book is brilliant!  I sat and read it by myself when the kids had gone to school and found it fascinating!  Who knew there was so much I didn't know about poo?  The book manages to be both funny (and silly) as well as being very interesting and educational.  Using a mixture of facts and figures, photographs and funny cartoons, you come away having sniggered a little at the vulture who poos on its own feet, but also knowing a lot about different types of poo, why poos smell, and why wombats do square poos.

The format is that of a typical non-fiction book, so it has a good contents page, index and glossary for any tricky words children might not be sure of such as intestine and fertiliser.  You can just read a specific section or, I found, it works well just sitting and reading it all the way through.  The layout on the pages is interesting and engaging, and the mixture of words and pictures is done very well, balanced enough so as to feel enjoyable!  The cartoons are a lot of fun.  My favourite is the bear at the beginning who we see having a poo, then the poo breaks down in the soil and helps huckleberries to grow which the bear then eats and poos out.  The bear has a cheeky look about him, and his final poop looks like rather a loud and violent one!

There are good photographs too, which show, for example, what the poo from a sperm whale looks like (important to know since it's worth a lot of money…) or the absolutely fascinating spiders and caterpillars who look like bird poo to protect themselves from predators.  The text is pitched at a Primary school level.  Key stage two children should be able to read it by themselves, and those who are younger would still thoroughly enjoy sharing it with a grown up.  I like that it mixes the facts and figures with 'real' explanations of what's going on.

I have to say, I learned a lot from this book!  It is very readable and engaging.  I know some people shy away from giving their children silly fart joke books and the like, but I would heartily recommend they rethink their no-poo policy when it comes to this book.  It is genuinely interesting, and done in such a brilliant way that you do find yourself reading it without the kids and then quoting interesting facts to work colleagues...so, one for the kids, and the grown ups too!

Further reading suggestion: You might also enjoy [[Serious Survival: How to Poo in the Arctic and Other Essential Tips for Explorers by Marshall Corwin]] and [[Poo in the Zoo by Steve Smallman and Ada Grey]] and [[Why is Snot Green? by Glenn Murphy]] 

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[[Category:Paul Mason]] [[Category:Tony de Saulles]]