Naked! by Michael Ian Black

Naked! by Michael Ian Black, illustrated by Debbie Ridpath Ohi

Simon & Schuster

Rating: 4 stars

There's really nothing better than running through the house naked. For my kids--KIDS...not the whole family! Truly, streaking is not part of my husband's and my nightly constitution. Promise. But if you want to put a little frosting on that cake of a naked activity, it's yelling out like a crazy person "Naked!" Which you will most certainly do after reading this wonderfully silly book.

The narrator in this book is delighted to run through his house naked. And we readers were delighted to see how illustrator Debbie Ridpath Ohi cleverly disguised the boy bits we'd prefer not see. Like my boys, the boy in the book loves to run through the house after his bath sans clothes. Through the hall, in his room, down the stairs, with his mom running after him with a towel and the dad protecting the baby from her brother's nakedness.

Look at me, everybody! I'm caped!

Then, the boy does more things and dreams of doing more things:
Eating a cookie totally and complete NAKED!
I could go to school NAKED!
Play on the playground NAKED!
Do the hokey pokey NAKED!

Then our silly hero puts on a cape, and the illustrations get even better.

But then he gets cold. And then he becomes exhausted. And then he is...asleep.

He does put pajamas on during the post-cape, pre-sleeping moments!

Fun, fun book that is guaranteed to make your post-bathtime a little rowdier and a little gigglier.

Everyone Poops by Taro Gomi

Everyone Poops by Taro Gomi

Rating: 4 stars

Throwback Thursday!

Newsflash: Everybody poops!  (But I think you already knew that.)

This funny book is full of pictures of lots of animals (including humans) pooping.  That's all there really is to it.  Taro Gomi illustrates all the differences and the similarities that go along with our scatological preferences: some animals poop in the water, others in the air, most on the ground.  What do all these bowel movements look like?  Well, Taro Gomi is glad you're curious about that: he's drawn pebbles and logs, heaps and piles…of poop.

There's such a fine line between funny and gross, and I think some would argue that an illustration of poop falling from a giraffe's rump might be totally gross…and not picture book worthy.  But what child isn't a bit shocked when they realize what is happening when they squish up their face and push out some freakishly dark object from their own little body?!  Taro Gomi's sorta-gross, sorta-funny book reassures us in a way that we adults still want to be reassured: everybody does it.  So relax, laugh a little at yourself, and keep on doing it.

C'mon…that's funny!

(Not that we have a choice about that last part when it comes to pooping.)

Enjoy the book!  Feel free to take it to the bathroom with you…



P.S.  Taro Gomi's My Friends is one of my favorite board books for babies…it is very cute and sweet, and not gross at all, promise.

Time to Pee! by Mo Willems

Time to Pee! by Mo Willems

Rating: 4 stars

When we potty trained our first child--or, really, when she potty-trained herself--we bought three or four books to help her understand what she was going to do.  We talked about it at length.  If there had been a movie, I would have sat with her and watched it, pausing it when I had something to add.  Which would have been a lot.

My sister took it one step further.  She potty-trained her twins girls, who are four months older than Lorelei, she WROTE a super long, super detailed book about what they were to do when they "got that funny feeling."  It was practically a chapter book!  With TONS of words.  Way too many words.  I mean, a LOT of words.

She and I recently potty-trained our cabooses--our last kids.  (Her fourth child is just six weeks older than my third; both are about 2 1/2.)  I think we had the same approach, quite different than the first time: "Hey, kid, here's the potty.  You know what to do, right?"

Okay, I am exaggerating.  But it was about the same amount of words as Mo Willems uses in his book, which is simply an explanation with cute illustrations about what you should do when you "get that funny feeling."  With the help of a lot of mice holding up a lot of signs, he tells kids what to do.  My favorite page is "Boys can stand; girls should sit."  That gets a lot of questions in my house.

Anyway, we checked this book out again a few weeks AFTER Kiefer started wearing underwear.  Oops.  We are planning an enormous celebration of the end of an era.  The End of Diapers!  After nearly 7 years of changing them, it is worthy of a celebration!

Thank you for using the toilet, Kiefer!

Oh No, Gotta Go #2 by Susan Middletown Elya

Oh No, Gotta Go #2 by Susan Middletown Elya, illustrated by Lynn Avril

Rating: 4 stars

Yup, there's a sequel to Oh No Gotta Go, the cute story of a little girl who drinks too much juice and suddenly has to go to the bathroom NOW.  When I saw there was a second book, I was curious if it was just another situation in which she'd have to pee or if, as the book hints, this one wasn't about pee but about poop.

It's about poop!

Lorelei chuckled the whole time through this book, and while there's a lot of Spanish that Lorelei, who thinks she's already fluent, liked, it was the slang and easy innuendos that I liked teaching her through this book.  We don't say "#1" and "#2" in our house, but it's definitely a good thing to know.  Bathroom cultural literacy, if you will.  Ha!  As her stomach gurgles and churns, there's a picture of a volcano(cleverly, the street that they're walking next to is turned into a lava-gurgling, about-to-erupt volcano), so it was fun to tell Lorelei that the author and illustrator are saying that her stomach is like a volcano and she needs to sit on the potty before she explodes in a less desirable place.

This might be a little too much potty talk for your family, but we really liked it.

(By the way, in case you were worried, she makes it.)

Oh No, Gotta Go! by Susan Middleton Elya

Oh No, Gotta Go! by Susan Middle ton Elya, illustrated by G. Brian Karas

Rating: 4 stars

Is my daughter the only preschooler who thinks s/he can speak Spanish (or another language)?  We watch Handy Manny once-ish a day, and we've read a handful of bilingual books over the year.  I avoid Dora like the plague (sorry if you're a fan--Lorelei loves her but her little voice drives me crazy.  I try to focus on the positive like maps, adventure, and helping, but...it's just not my favorite) so...where does this interest come from?!  I wonder if it's a natural part of language learning; there are other languages out there being spoken other than your own.  As a culturally-minded mom (and a former Peace Corps Volunteer) I don't mind this at all.

So this book fell in our laps.  Not literally, of course.  It is mostly English with a smattering of Spanish words thrown in.  The text rhymes, making it even easier for Lorelei to remember big chunks of the book.  That's a good thing, because the first few times we read it together she only remembered, "Where is un bano?  Donde esta?"  I was about ready to slip the book in the night return box in the library after tucking her in...  But, after a few weeks, she remembered a whole lot more.

The story is funny and cute; a little family of three get in the car to go somewhere and the little girl suddenly has to go to the bathroom.  I find it really amusing that it's the father who is responsible for forgetting to remind her (we moms never would!) but of course they promise to find one quickly.  They drive around the city until the find a restaurant, at which they quickly park, run in and...run smack into a long line!  They beg forgiveness to skip to the front, and the little girl "comes out with a smile."  They eat at the restaurant, but the little girl focuses more of her time and attention on the limonada, so we all have a big laugh when, after getting back into the car, she asks: "Where is un bano?  Donde esta?"