"Wonderful Poop": A Shitty Book to Start the Year Right

What does star status ultimately depend on? Talent, perhaps, but above all, a lot of blissful admiration from a flock of fans who place you above the rank of mortal, not conceiving for a moment that their idol would stoop to vulgar everyday acts. In Merveilleux caca, Santa Claus tumbles from his pedestal. Imagine that he poops. Singers poop, queens and kings poop, even teachers poop! Their turds are here decorated with pens planted vertically, because after all, they are teachers' coils. In short, everyone poops. In their diapers, the potty, or the train toilet, and even in nature if we feel like it, but in that case we should think carefully about burying our production and not letting the paper tickle the undergrowth.

We're all familiar with children's books about poop. The focus is on continence and the fight against intestinal obstruction. This one is refreshing. We'll even allow ourselves a breach of ethics by using the publishing house's language: it's "excrement bien." Highly informative, first of all. Young readers will discover what poop is, how digestion works (explained a thousand times in a thousand books, but here in a clear and enjoyable way), and what we've eaten too much or too little of depending on the shape of the stool (ditto). Overall, if you're straying from the "perfect sausage," it's because you haven't drunk enough water or ingested enough fiber. Anything from "soft grapes" to "sausage that sticks to the toilet" indicates too much fat.

We take our knowledge up a notch by following the path of a turd from the toilet to the fields it will fertilize, discovering along the way how sewers and water treatment plants work. Animals and their relationship with excrement have a special place. The "world champion of poop" (will you recognize the elephant?) even has a page, describing how its colossal droppings are used to make beer, paper and other bricks in certain Asian countries. Wombats, termites, rabbits and dung beetles are not left out, each with its own little poopy peculiarity.

In terms of form, the rounded illustrations in this large hardback book are amusing without being grotesque or childish, serving the purpose in a nice balance between information and entertainment (bravo to the three white poops that were actually little meringues in disguise, we were fooled). Marvelous Poop rehabilitates poop by highlighting its usefulness for ecosystems, in a no-nonsense educational approach. Go for it.