Everyone Poops

Rating:
Summary: Everyone does it... what's the problem?
Review: This book is great from a toddler's point of view! Sure it's crude and simplistic, but so are 3 year olds! My small son loves this one, takes it to the bathroom with him. It shows him that poop is a normal, acceptable thing that all living things do, and has really helped us in our efforts to toilet train him. Everyone poops, and kids need to know that it's okay, a good thing even :)

Rating:
Summary: Everyone DOES poop!
Review: People look to books that address issues important to them. Everyone wants a book that relates to their own world view and literature that either reaffirms or extends that view; Everyone Poops by Taro Gomi is a perfect example of this.

For a child nearing the age when he or she begins to become aware of and acquainted with his or her body and bodily functions, this book offers insight and a better understanding of a process that has become a foremost issue with which they are concerned, and to which they pay great attention. For a child, the potty-training process can be one of either great defiance or one of great achievement and accomplishment. This book illustrates to children that they are part of the natural rhythms of the universe and the overall normal order of things.

The bright illustrations of fun and exotic animals as they pose with their excrement encourage the children that pooping is a matter of fact. Everyone Poops also has an underlying diversity theme illustrated by the emphasis placed on the different characters and their individual fecal matter. This sends the message that although all of our bodies are similar we also have individual variations, a theme that can be applied to other lessons that children will later learn.

I chose to review this book because it brings to light an important and oddly taboo subject matter. I like this book because it encourages discussion of sanctioned, socially unacceptable subject matter. Simply put, everyone does poop. This book exemplifies how even the most natural of things and something so simple as to be the topic of a children¡¦s book, has become distorted in our society¡¦s view. Everyone Poops has a multitude of applications reaching far beyond its intended audience.

I should end by saying that I did wash my hands after reading the bookļ.