Seriously, what child can hide a smirk (if not an outright giggle) when the topic of poo pops up… and pop-up it does in this fun and laugh-out-loud book. 

Yes, the tried and tested medium of poo is the feature of this pop-up picture book, which ploughs through a plethora of scientific, cultural and historical facts: in the islands near Peru, cormarants have created faecal mountains, which have long been exploited as fertiliser; rabbits make most of their poo by redigesting it – that’s right, eating it and poking again!; and bat poo, high in phosphorus and nitrogen, was used to make gunpowder during the American Civil War. The central ‘o’ in the cover’s ‘poo’ is a toilet seat that lifts up to reveal said contents, whilst inside, the book is laced with this kind of toilet humour again and again, both in text and illustration, inciting many a young belly laugh and, yes, sheepish adult grins.

On every page, ‘things’ spring out at you, lift up and pull out, making reading a hands-on experience that will attract the youngest of readers, and so jam-packed is it with content that they will still be reading it years later.

Author Notes British author Gaby Goldsack is a widely published children’s writer with several series of books, including the Busy Books series and the My Great Relatives series, to her name. Her work has been translated into Spanish and French. Ian Dicks is an equally prolific illustrator and cartoonist, with many children’s titles to his name, as well as work published in The Financial Times and The Sunday Times.