How else were Daisy Bird and Marianna Coppo supposed to follow their previous collaboration, Whose Poo? In the equally uninhibited picture book The Big Bang and Other Farts: A Blast Through the Past, the returning collaborators deliver not only unremitting humor but also something to think about between laughs.
As the book begins, a rat dad and his two rat pups settle on the couch to watch a documentary about, as Dad puts it, "some of the most important moments in history!" First up is the story of the universe's creation: "Before there was anything, there was just this silent space," intones the documentary's narrator. Suddenly, a "PFFFT!" erupts in the darkness on-screen: "It's made a black hole!" insists the narrator. Next comes the story of humans' evolution from animals: "PFFFT!" emits a fish, clearing the ocean of its denizens. On it goes, with Dad finally fulminating, "History is not just one fart after another!" Unfortunately for Dad, his argument is weakened when, while bending over to reach the TV's remote, he makes a bit of history of his own ("PFFFT!").
While The Big Bang and Other Farts is ceaselessly funny, readers may find themselves eager to earnestly refute the book's, er, alternative facts. As for the art, Bird's book-length gassy gag might have carried the whiff of the icky if not for Coppo's gouache illustrations, which are bright, tidy, and otherwise suited to the kind of kids' book that doesn't hypothesize a supremely unsavory reason for the Mona Lisa's smile. --Nell Beram, freelance writer and YA author