All Pooped Out - The Lasting Appeal of Potty Books

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Feb 20 2021

A black and white photo of two young girls laughing.

Wanna hear a poop joke?

Nah, they always stink.

I have a 7-year-old son, and I would say that at least 30% of our conversations these days begin with him laughing about poop. This has surprised me; I grew up in a family of four girls, and talking about bathroom habits was not something we did on the regular. It wasn’t that we were all so proper, no – it was that it never crossed our mind.

For children of a certain age, however, toilet humor is a source of never-ending delight and mischief. They will happily share with anyone who comes to your house.

I have never heard the word "poop" so much as I have the last six months. According to my son, and sometimes his dad, poop and pee are the most hilarious things in the entire world. Poop jokes, poop sounds, poop everything. I’ve never heard the child laugh so hard as he did while watching "The Haunted Hathaways" and a ghost farted, complete with a poof of glitter air. I've heard him singing a song to himself in his room that went something like “Poop, poop, pee, poop, doop, doop,dogs and lemons.”

It’s a good thing that children’s book authors understand a silly child's mind. When I started working at the library, I was surprised at how many children’s books we had about poop. Aside from the predictable potty training books, we have tons of books about toilet stuff (she says with a blush). We even had a pre-pandemic experience zone educating customers about animal scat.

Anythink has materials to will help you be prepared to answer curious questions about body functions, or crack a smile with your kiddo, sharing in their humor.