Flush: The Scoop on Poop Throughout the Ages - Hardcover

Charise Mericle Harper is the author and illustrator of our own Imaginative Inventions, I Know a Bold Lady Who Wanted a Star, and the middle grade novel Flashcards of My Life published in January 2006.

Grade 2-4–In rhyming verse supplemented by entertaining sidebars, this snappy title gives a tour of the history of human waste. The poems, heavy on potty humor and gross details, take readers on a journey from the time before toilet paper and the very first toilets (8000 B.C.) to those of today, including the kinds that astronauts use. While the rhyme scheme is a little inconsistent, each poem is so full of interesting trivia that readers will hardly notice. This title will make kids really think about the realities of one of their favorite subjects. Colorful cartoons punctuate the text while also adding to the silliness. Unfortunately, the last poem offers a weak conclusion to the slightly more sophisticated bathroom humor of the previous rhymes (Lets do it all together./Not a whisper, give a shout:/'POOPY! POOPY! POOPY!/is what this books about! Still, kids will enjoy this quick and informative read, and it will work well when paired with Susan E. Goodmans The Truth about Poop (Viking, 2004) and Patricia Laubers What You Never Knew about Tubs, Toilets, and Showers (S & S, 2001).–Julie Roach, Cambridge Public Library, MA
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