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A HISTORY OF TOILET PAPER (AND OTHER POTTY TOOLS)

A humorous and clever tale about toilet tools.

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A comedic, nonfiction picture book explores the history of human hygiene and toilet paper.

Starting at the beginning of human history (200,000 years ago, according to Gholz’s timeline), this creative story examines potty tools. Early substitutes for toilet paper and hand towels included seashells, grass, moss, and leaves. The author fast-forwards to ancient Mesopotamia’s ceramic and brick nonflushing toilets and makes a stop at ancient Rome’s public toilets—recommended “if you don’t mind pottying in public and sharing a tersorium (a bum brush) with others.” She then proceeds to the invention of paper in China in 79 C.E. But it takes many years before flushing toilets and commercial toilet paper hit the market, and Gholz and illustrator Teimoy indulge in silliness every step of the way. In endnotes, the author explains that sources differ regarding many facts about toilet origins, but the inventors and time periods in the book are the most commonly accepted. For sheer potty humor, Gholz has hit gold, and the use of simple language and sentence structures allows emergent and newly independent readers to experience the comedy confidently. Teimoy’s diverse cartoon illustrations capture the humor of early potty techniques (for example, a bidet user in 1700s France loses her balance while getting a “spritz”). For some readers, the specifics of how toilet paper was invented and marketed may come as a revelation. In addition, this history of how humans have gone to the bathroom delivers plenty of gross, gleeful details that science lovers will enjoy.

A humorous and clever tale about toilet tools.

Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2022

ISBN: 9780762475551

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Running Press Kids

Review Posted Online: March 14, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023

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LUNAR NEW YEAR

From the Celebrate the World series

Lovely illustrations wasted on this misguided project.

The Celebrate the World series spotlights Lunar New Year.

This board book blends expository text and first-person-plural narrative, introducing readers to the holiday. Chau’s distinctive, finely textured watercolor paintings add depth, transitioning smoothly from a grand cityscape to the dining room table, from fantasies of the past to dumplings of the present. The text attempts to provide a broad look at the subject, including other names for the celebration, related cosmology, and historical background, as well as a more-personal discussion of traditions and practices. Yet it’s never clear who the narrator is—while the narrative indicates the existence of some consistent, monolithic group who participates in specific rituals of celebration (“Before the new year celebrations begin, we clean our homes—and ourselves!”), the illustrations depict different people in every image. Indeed, observances of Lunar New Year are as diverse as the people who celebrate it, which neither the text nor the images—all of the people appear to be Asian—fully acknowledges. Also unclear is the book’s intended audience. With large blocks of explication on every spread, it is entirely unappealing for the board-book set, and the format may make it equally unattractive to an older, more appropriate audience. Still, readers may appreciate seeing an important celebration warmly and vibrantly portrayed.

Lovely illustrations wasted on this misguided project. (Board book. 4-8)

Pub Date: Dec. 11, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-5344-3303-8

Page Count: 24

Publisher: Little Simon/Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: Dec. 4, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2019

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THE LITTLE BOOK OF JOY

Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40.

From two Nobel Peace Prize winners, an invitation to look past sadness and loneliness to the joy that surrounds us.

Bobbing in the wake of 2016’s heavyweight Book of Joy (2016), this brief but buoyant address to young readers offers an earnest insight: “If you just focus on the thing that is making / you sad, then the sadness is all you see. / But if you look around, you will / see that joy is everywhere.” López expands the simply delivered proposal in fresh and lyrical ways—beginning with paired scenes of the authors as solitary children growing up in very different circumstances on (as they put it) “opposite sides of the world,” then meeting as young friends bonded by streams of rainbow bunting and going on to share their exuberantly hued joy with a group of dancers diverse in terms of age, race, culture, and locale while urging readers to do the same. Though on the whole this comes off as a bit bland (the banter and hilarity that characterized the authors’ recorded interchanges are absent here) and their advice just to look away from the sad things may seem facile in view of what too many children are inescapably faced with, still, it’s hard to imagine anyone in the world more qualified to deliver such a message than these two. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40. (Picture book. 6-8)

Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022

ISBN: 978-0-593-48423-4

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022

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