PICTURE BOOKS
Gusti,

This Poop Is Mine!

(2) K-3 Somos8 series. Translated by Cecilia Ross. Teaching sharing to a potty humor–­loving reader, this book (originally published in Spanish as ¡Esta caca es mía!) is a perfect choice. It begins with a dog blithely going about his regular daily business, leaving his customary "little present" in the garden. Lola, a "very flitty fly," stakes her claim on this "enormous steaming mountain," ­planting her flag and declaring: "This poop is mine!" Enter Fiona, the "laziest and most ­loudmouthed of all flies," who swoops in with her own assertion: "This poop is mine!" Relatable retorts about not-­fairness and here-first-ness ensue. And then the poop-slinging begins. It's all humorously, and disgustingly, shown in Gusti's bold-hued, black-outlined illustrations. The two scrappy flies are clad in all-black and ready to rumble, Lola being squatter and rounder with yellow eyes, and Fiona taller and more rectangular with purple eyes. The scenes in which they stomp their feet (four each, plus two arms) are particularly...poo-kicking, with zum zum sound effects enhancing readers' sensory experience, for better or worse. It's not a total gross-out: the illustrations' textured backgrounds are quite painterly, and the twilight-set scenes chronicling the insects' equal separation of the spoils are surprisingly serene. The story doesn't end there, though, and true détente between the critters comes only after a human puts their foot in it.

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