A Stinky Subject, With Humor And Rhyme

Children’s book author Artie Bennett has done the impossible—twice.

He has made backsides, and the products of them, humorous reading fare for children. First, he wrote “The Butt Book,” his educational debut laced with humorous rhyme modeled from the anatomical books by Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, Mr. Bennett explained during a telephone interview last week.

“I had thought that Dr. Seuss would have written ‘The Butt Book’ himself had he lived long enough or if times had been different,” he mused. “He passed away in 1991. Had Dr. Seuss written it back then, they might have thrown him in jail. Times have changed.”

They haven’t changed nearly enough to make conversation about posteriors any more comfortable, let alone what comes out of them. But it appears there is no subject Mr. Bennett can’t make entertaining, and he’s done it again with “Poopendous!” which was published earlier this year.

The book features a trip around the world with Professor Pip Poopdeck to learn about “the inside scoop on every type and use of poop.” The author will be reading from his newest on Friday at The Hampton Synagogue in Westhampton Beach.

“That’s something you always got from Dr. Seuss’s books: they were always adventures,” Mr. Bennett said during a phone interview last week. “You’d take an adventure in your mind and your imagination when you’d read one of his books: like if I ran the zoo and the narrator is bringing back all these fanciful, fantastic creatures from around the world, none of which existed in real life. They’re just wonderful to marvel at.”

But there is nothing fictional about the animals in “Poopendous!” Mr. Bennett said. Even the Brooklyn-based author, a natural history buff and avid outdoorsman, learned a thing or two while conducting his research. For example, termites found in Africa construct their mounds almost entirely from their dung, he said, and “guano” is an Incan—not Spanish—word for bat and ocean bird droppings.

“I learned wombats are alone in the animal kingdom for having cube-shaped poop resembling rather pungent dice,” he added. “When I stumbled upon that fact, it was not only fascinating, but it was almost miraculous.”

At the time, the author was noodling with one of his favorite verses in the book. It begins, “Rabbit pellets, raccoon tubes / Owl whitewash, and ...” He needed a two-syllable creature, with the stress on the second syllable, to keep with the rhyme.

“Wombat cubes!” he exclaimed. “It couldn’t have been more perfect if I had designed wombats to have such a by-product myself.”

Humans have some seemingly bizarre poop practices, too, he said. While using manure as fertilizer is a commonplace practice on the East End, building homes from cow dung—as the Masai tribe does in Kenya and Tanzania—is not.

“You would think that a cow dung hut would bear the foulest of odors, that you couldn’t possibly live in one,” Mr. Bennett, who is the executive copy editor for Random House Books for Young Readers, said. “But apparently not. Animals that are vegetarians will have poop that doesn’t smell nearly as rank as animals that eat meat, and when cow dung sits out in the sun and bakes, much of that foulness dissipates. Cow dung huts, I guess we could even live in a cow dung hut if need be.”

The Masai tribesmen aren’t the only ones who use feces to their advantage, Mr. Bennett reported. Some souvenir shops in Maine, Alaska and Montana sell knick-knacks made from moose poop, and Mongol warriors in Asia often seal their native shacks, called yurts, with yak dung, he said.

“That was an interesting surprise,” the author said. “Funny, at one of my readings, I happened to read that verse and a little boy sitting in front yelled, ‘Yak! Yuck!’ I thought, ‘Well, that’s a great response.’”

The subject matter is allayed by the book’s verses—which allow children to learn and have fun with language, Mr. Bennett said, not to mention spark a love for reading—and the animated, cartooney illustrations by Mike Moran.

“He purposefully chose a pastel color scheme to soften the book’s topic,” Mr. Bennett said. “So it’s as child-friendly as a book about poop could possibly be. The illustrations are just laugh-out-loud funny. I’m hoping this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship and that we’ll collaborate in the future. We could be the Abbott and Costello of children’s books.”

For his next project, Mr. Bennett said he is looking for a trifecta in the odorous, putrid and horrid. The subject will be feet.

“I go from butts to poop to feet,” he said. “Evidently, I’ll be cleaning up my act, though I’m sure there will be passing reference to smelly and stinky and dirty feet. So this could well be my most offensive children’s book yet.”

Artie Bennett will read from and sign his new book, “Poopendous!” on Friday, July 6, at 10:30 a.m. at The Hampton Synagogue in Westhampton Beach. Admission is free. For more information, call 288-0534.