I Eat Poop.: A Dung Beetle Story

by Mark Pett, Mark Pett (Illustrator)

Overview

In the vein of Please Don't Eat Me and We Don't Eat Our Classmates, I Eat Poop. by Mark Pett is a heartwarming and hilarious picture book about friendship, fitting in, and accepting each other's differences.

Dougie has a secret: he’s not a ground beetle.
He’s a dung beetle, and he loves eating poop.

Dougie knows he should be proud. Dung beetles help process waste and do other extraordinary things! But Dougie also knows that if anyone at school saw his lunch, he’d be an outcast.

One day, the lunchroom bugs out over a classmate eating poop, and Dougie must make a choice. Can he stand up for his friend—and for his true self?

I Eat Poop. is packed with important social emotional learning themes and is great for classroom or at home discussion. Read I Eat Poop. for conversations about:

- Bullying and being kind
- Standing up for your friends and speaking up for your beliefs
- Being proud of your culture and heritage
- Embracing diversity and accepting and celebrating differences

The book also includes incredible, STEM-related facts about bugs.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250785633
Publisher:	Roaring Brook Press
Publication date:	10/26/2021
Pages:	48
Sales rank:	142,368
Product dimensions:	8.60(w) x 11.30(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	AD530L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Mark Pett is the author and illustrator of I'm Not Millie!, This Is My Book, Lizard From the Park, The Boy and the Airplane, The Girl and the Bicycle, and The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes. Before books, he created the syndicated comic strips Mr. Lowe and Lucky Cow. He lives in the Mountain West.

Editorial Reviews

"The fine-lined illustrations, full of details to pore over, are delightful, and the story moves at a quick pace, effectively delivering on both humor and message." —Kirkus Reviews

"Dougie’s school is a refreshing change from cuddly mammal-focused academies, and kids with a taste for grossout humor will adore the details of his lunch and his classmates’ biologically accurate revelations... a cheerfully irreverent intro to enjoyably extreme biology." —The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

Missouri Association of School Librarians Show Me Award Winner

From the Publisher

2021-08-11
A dung beetle learns to be proud of his diet.

Common themes of friendship, popularity, and being true to yourself find expression in the story of Dougie Dung Beetle, who’s embarrassed about eating lunch in front of everyone. When Ronald Roly Poly defensively curls into a ball in response to a prank and his wild rolling threatens classroom destruction, Dougie uses specific dung-beetle skills to steer Ronald to safety and is invited to join the popular crowd in the cafeteria. Poop jokes and insect facts are a surefire hit with an elementary school crowd, and this story delivers both in spades: Dougie, the Dung Beetle family, and Herman Housefly feast on poopy juice, poop bars, pooding, and poopcorn. The dung beetle spends most of the book ashamed of this diet, but resolution comes when the other bugs reveal weird facts about themselves: A goth mosquito admits to drinking blood, a worm’s tail reveals that it has a brain, and Alphonse Aphid “was born pregnant.” The first-person prose is a bit wooden at times, and at almost 50 pages this will make for a longer read-aloud than is common. But the fine-lined illustrations, full of details to pore over, are delightful, and the story moves at a quick pace, effectively delivering on both humor and message. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Gross but great. (Picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Reviews