Butt of the Joke: Chicken Butt! by Erica Perl

"You know what?

"What?"

"CHICKEN BUTT!"

"You know why?"

"Why?"

"CHICKEN THIGH!"

"You know how?

"How?"

CHICKEN EYEBROW!"

Yeah, yeah, yeah! It's the silliest, the stupidest, the downright BOTTOM for schoolboy schoolyard jokes, all dressed up with those irresistibly goofy, googly-eyed chickens that illustrator Henry Cole conjures up, and it's just plain fun for the reader, slapstick verbal humor which will knock kids back on their keisters abounds in such lines as

"You know where?"

"Where?" (from the disgusted but still determinedly patient dad)

"CHICKEN UNDERWEAR!"

Erica Perl's Chicken Butt! (Abrams, 2009) even gives the youthful jokester the last line, the sorta surprising switch to "MONKEY BUTT!" in her salute to wordplay (or we might say fowl play,) one of what was a humongous harvest of heiny humor in 2009. Along with Black's cheery Chicken Cheeks (see my earlier review here) and Halliday's happyfest, Always Lots of Heinies at the Zoo (reviewed here), 2009 was a banner year for bottoms, so we might as well let Erica Perl's latest have its, um, seat at this table. As one reviewer says, "Warning: Kids will want to read this one over and over and over again! An unhinged piece of slap-happy rhyming…rocket-propelled artwork… the romp is a powerful piece of cacophony, more frenetic by the moment."

In A-rrears: Chicken Cheeks by Ian Michael Black

"This is a story with a beginning, a middle, and a whole lot of ends."

With this "wazoo warning," Ian Michael Black's Chicken Cheeks (Simon & Schuster, 2009) is off and running in his short and sweetly hilarious paean to wordplay on the posterior portion of a menagerie of critters.

Bear has a ladder, but he soon ascertains that it's not up to the job of reaching a honey hive at the top of a tree. Luckily, he's obviously, er, well-grounded in his Grimm Brothers, and soon entices a series of animals in building a Bremen-Town-type tower to the top of the tree. In a series of seriously funny riffs on the rear ends of the climbers, Black stacks the animals head to hindquarters, in a can't-top-this list of slang synonyms for the anatomical tokus -- moose caboose, gnu kazoo, turkey tushy, hound dog heiny, kangaroo keister, flamingo fanny, toucan can, penguin patootie and platypus gluteus maximus, to name only a few--until the pyramid finally reaches the yearned-for yummy at the top of the tree.

But BUMmer! The hive has its own well-armed rear guard--bumblebee bums--whose sitters pack stingers which topple the tower and brings the duffers down to the ground promptly. In a sly bit of author-illustrator collusion, we see a bunch of ants, who have been shown surreptitiously waiting in the background in each illustration, feasting on the hoped-for booty of this honey hunt.

Kevin Hawkes' super silly illustrations work well with Black's tongue-in-cheek text to make this picture book a fine giggle-fest for kids who are savvy enough to savor a bit of sophisticated word play. Third graders, whose appreciation for hindquarter humor and alliterative and punny playfulness is at its peak, will be rocked off their rumps by this one!

Patootie Poetry! The Tushy Book by Fran Manuskin

Life is comfy, you will find,
When you have your own behind.

Sitting down would not be cushy,
If you didn't have a tushy!

After the publication this year, first of Chicken Cheeks, and then Always Lots of Heinies at the Zoo, (my reviews here) we might have assumed that the patootie poets would be, well, pooped, but then here comes nimble rhymster Fran Manuskin with her tasteful new story-in-rhyme The Tushy Book (Feiwal & Friends, 2009).

Unlike the two earlier picture books, this one is not a workout for the wordsmith or a tour de force for the slangster. Manushkin's little picture book for the very young, who will doubtless dote on the heiny humor imbedded so skillfully in her rhythmic rhymes, focuses totally on but one term:

Tushy's so much fun to say.
Say it ten times every day!

Where would you put your underwear,
If your tushy wasn't there?

Ever entertained that thought? And then there's the unquestionable universality of the tush...

Every dog and every kitty
Needs a tush for sitting pretty.

Grown-up tushies, firm or droopy;
Baby tushies, cute but poopy!

Equal credit for the appeal of this book should go to artist Tracy Dockray, beginning with her cover art of an appealing preschooler in her sparkly underwear, preparing to go keester over teakettle in a somersault. Dockray's dainty derrieres and prudent posteriors--toddlers and puppies in the style of the old Coppertone ads, elephants and apes in the zoo, cats and kittens, ice skaters and bed bouncers, Barbies and bears--all (except for one tot, partial backside visible in his bath) appropriately covered, make for some drop-dead darling duffs and cute cabooses on every engaging double-page spread. Executed in pencil and transparent ink on vellum, the illustrations have a tactile sueded glow that is as soft and warm as, well, a baby's bottom.

And, there's even a happy, er, ending!

Beneath the picture of a happy toddler seated on his potty, with high-five-ing parents celebrating in the background, we read

Stand up tall; be proud to say,
"I use my tushy every day!"

More Hindquarters Humor: Always Lots of Heinies at the Zoo by Ayun Halliday

If you hang around the cages at the zoo,
Watch closely! And you'll learn a thing or two.

From the feathered booty of the cockatoo.
To the hairy haunches of the caribou,

Some are smooth and some are shiny;
Some are swimming in the briny;

No one tries to hide his heinie
At the zoo.

Booties and patooties are big in publishing this spring! Hard on the hindquarters of Michael Black's recent chuckle-athon, Chicken Cheeks (reviewed here on February 10) comes Ayun Halliday's just published Always Lots of Heinies at the Zoo, which also celebrates and catalogs the seemingly interminable terminology of the tushie.

There's a rear for every deer,
A caboose for every moose.
Glutes on newts and bandicoots
At the zoo.

Like Black's paean to the posterior, Halliday's text is clever and his rhymes sometimes gleefully surprising, while artist Dan Santate's illustrations are humorous but tasteful as he pictures the varieties of patooties paraded by the population at the zoo.

But Halliday reserves her final derriere description for one particular group of critters whose cans are cannily covered:

In our research, we found just one species who
Keeps its keister clothed in cotton at the zoo
(And in corduroy and polyester too).

Care to guess? It's people just like me and you....
But three cheers for all those heinies at the zoo.

Sniffles Time: What a Cold Needs by Barbara Bottner

WHAT DOES A COLD NEED?

It needs Mom's cool hand on the forehead, your own box of tissues, and some well-worn pajamas...

It also needs a window open to the spring sound of birds singing, cozy socks and chicken soup made by Grandma, Granddad's kiss and some silly jokes from Daddy.

A cold definitely needs...

... a good book.. and if you're lucky, Grandpa strumming his guitar...

A cold needs a radio softly playing, a puppy snoozing on your bed, and...

... a long, deep afternoon nap.

Colds need someone to feel sorry for you and someone to tell you it'll go away soon.

What a cold needs is...

... love and ... a little time.

In a soothing book for youngsters, noted author Barbara Bottner's What a Cold Needs (Neal Porter/Holiday House Books, 2019) evokes the comforting care of a kind family during the all-too-common colds of childhood.

Artist Chris Sheban provides the gently charming illustrations done in the soft textures of smudged pencil and the pastel hues of the oft-washed pajamas worn by a girl, one whose whose red nose tells the tale of a short illness. Inevitably, that red nose fades to be replaced by the ruddy cheeks of a no-longer ailing girl--who can now play outside and come back in to hug her dad, who is now wearing the pajamas and red nose. Kids will love the humor of this book, and grown-ups will feel a touch of nostalgia for those days when they got new crayons and got to take their sick days in bed.

This book is a literary get-well card for sick kids, done, as Kirkus Reviews put it, with "with lyricism and whimsy."