Why Dogs Eat Poop: Gross but True Things You Never Knew About Animals
Like Gould’s Why You Shouldn’t Eat Your Boogers (2013), this is a young-reader version of a similarly titled adult book. It leaves out chapters on sexual topics and some of the rawer content . . . but, no fears, there’s still plenty left to astonish and disgust. In a Q&A format, the authors introduce such memorable creatures as the aptly named Dracula ant, a parrot that was the last speaker of an indigenous language in Venezuela, and a gallery of projectile “power pooers” that includes penguins and hornbills. They also present dozens of animal offensive and defensive strategies (“In tests, the western hooknose snakes were found to fart only when threatened”) and offer speculative but well-reasoned answers for some of nature’s unsolved mysteries, such as the titular canine practice. Simply drawn cartoon critters in chapter openings and preview pages (“Coming up: babies who eat their moms”), along with the lack of back matter, signal this is intended strictly for recreational browsing—but who wouldn’t benefit from knowing that turning a shark upside down will stun it, or that crocodiles will retreat when poked in the eye? Grades 1-4. --John Peters