HAIKU, EW!

Poetic observations from nature’s more nauseating reaches, with gleefully gut-churning explanatory comments.

“Cute koala bear / Baby nuzzles Mama’s butt, / Munches poop. Still cute?” Covering everything from hagfish (“darlings of the slime world”) to Surinam toad hatchlings, which pop “like zits” out of pits in mama toad’s back, these 14 haiku offer examples of nature in rousingly revolting action, along with tasty tidbits of prose commentary. In the latter, while determinedly going for the gross, Brunelle carefully sticks to the facts; she even explains, for example, why honey isn’t really bee barf, “if you want to get technical,” because it’s never in a bee’s stomach. She ends with helpful leads to websites and other books. To the relief of more sensitive human stomachs, Patton tones down the “ew!” factor in her animated illustrations. Yes, the inky cap mushrooms do drip with black slime, and her extreme close-up view of a jawless but far from toothless hagfish mouth is nightmarish (“So, enjoy that,” the author writes), but Patton renders anatomical details with reasonable fidelity, and in general the art is more likely to elicit giggles than gags. Better yet, this STEAM-y mix closes with an invitation for readers to try their hands at “haiku-ew” of their own that they’ll find hard to resist.

Offers a crowd-pleasing angle on both nature and poetry.