May 1, 2023
What the beginning of the universe, the Mona Lisa's smile, and certain other epochal touchstones in between have in common. Pandering again to audiences that can't get enough of certain words--or in this case sound effects--often enough, the creators of Whose Poo? (2021) string together a series of events linked, in Coppo's elementally simple gouache frames, by small green clouds emerging from one butt or another with disproportionate consequences. A family of mice sits down to watch a "very serious" documentary. "Best show ever!" squees a child to a discomfited parent as the first "PFFFT!" bursts into stars and galaxies, the next one from a tiny primordial fish drives animals out onto dry land, another from a volcano leads to the downfall of the dinosaurs ("Dad, is that why it's called exSTINKtion?"), and later putts end an ice age, cause the Sphinx's nose to fall off, knock the apples off Isaac Newton's tree, and other watershed events. Critics might carp that the fumes sending a diversely hued crew of Vikings fleeing to North America come from a whale's blowhole...but any port (so to speak) in a storm, and it's not like accuracy is a priority here. Dad as usual becomes the (wait for it) butt of the joke as he produces the biggest PFFFT! of all while indignantly reaching for the remote's off switch. Why dads should be unamused by this breezy revisionist history is anybody's guess. (This book was reviewed digitally.) Strictly for cheap laffs. (Picture book. 4-6)
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June 5, 2023
In this work from previous collaborators Bird and Coppo (Whose Poo?), two rodent siblings reluctantly sit down with their father to watch a “very serious show... about some of the most important moments in history!” From a pitch-black screen, an announcer intones, “Before there was anything, there was just this silent space. Lovely and quiet. Not a single sound.” Well, except for one: “PFFFT!” After the unmistakable onomatopoeia for passing gas appears in a tiny green speech balloon, the screen fills with images of a newly birthed cosmos. Now the sibs are totally on board (“Best show ever!” one declares), and as the program portrays time marching on, it highlights additional small but evidently powerful farts as fueling major turning points, including dinosaurs’ “exSTINKtion” and the appearance of that enigmatic Mona Lisa smile. “I don’t understand this show at all,” Dad says—but even he eventually proves capable of a noteworthy emanation of his own, suggesting that whether or not history is doomed to repeat itself, the sound of its resonance is “PFFFT!” Gouache artwork has a cut-paper tableau quality, giving each scene a kind of history-book dignity that’s ripe for being mischievously undermined. Ages 4–8.
September 1, 2023
Grades 1-3 A father mouse sits his two mouselings down to watch a very serious and educational historical television show, only to realize that the show posits that behind every great historical event was . . . a fart. The big bang? A space toot. In the age of the dinosaurs, a toxic volcano caused the ""exSTINKtion."" In the Ice Age, the glaciers melted because of a (woolly) mammoth-bottom burp. A camel cutting the cheese is what knocked the Sphinx's nose right off, Mona Lisa is smiling secretively because she had gas, and so on. Child readers will be as tickled as the mouselings are by this twisted history, and they will certainly love searching for the green speech bubble with ""Pffft!" in each historical scenario. The simple gouache artwork features rounded, adorable critters, which makes the crass content even funnier in its juxtaposition, and the overarching throughline about the television show, with the father mouse growing more upset, carries the story and makes it more than a simple gag.
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