Animals Brag About Their Bottoms

July 20, 2020
In this quirky translation, an innocent tribute to animal diversity by Tokyo-based author-illustrator Saito, “Everyone’s proud of their bottoms!” From a cuddly round bunny bottom to a hippo’s “so-o-o big” bum, Saito celebrates animal behinds in all their forms through paper collage, stenciled paintings, and dyed paper illustrations. It’s mostly all about size, shape, and utility, but Saito also presents the “stylish” stripy butts of zebra, tiger, and okapi; the “white, black, and black and white” rumps of various bears; and the heart-shaped tail that covers deer’s rears. The writing is simple and direct, occasionally turning playfully interrogative, as in a spread featuring a red-faced (and -tushed) Japanese macaque alongside the colorfully faced (and -bottomed) mandrill: “Did our faces copy our bottoms? Or did our bottoms copy our faces?” There’s the slightest nod to the way that different types of backsides might provide animals with adaptive advantages, but science-minded readers won’t take away much more than whimsy. Ending with a list of animals included throughout, there’s not a trace of self-consciousness in this jaunty, no-nonsense exhibition of animal posteriors. Ages 3–7.

July 1, 2020
Bum's the word! This humorous title delivers just what it promises: fauna fawning over their own rumps, no more and no less. Though scatological jokes would be an obvious extension of the theme, and scenes of creatures sitting down might be expected, Saito resists such content and mostly depicts the animals against white backgrounds, their backsides facing readers. The accompanying first-person text offers proud self-praise of the speakers' posteriors. At the very beginning, however, a hippo's head, rather than its bottom, peeks onto the recto facing a small rabbit, viewed from the rear, on the verso. The text above the rabbit boasts, "My bottom is such a round bottom--and so cute, don't you think?" The hippo replies, "I have a round bottom too! So round--and so-o-o big!" A page turn reveals that big bottom, and on the facing page an elephant looks down from the recto's upper-right corner to declare, "My bottom's even bigger! So much bigger!" The page turn reveals that yes, indeed, it is. Next come a tiger's, zebra's, and okapi's striped bums, then other colorful bottoms. Monkeys and baboons, shown front- and back-facing declare, "Our bottoms are the same color as our faces!" The culminating spreads show a lineup of every bottom from the prior pages. In Saito's delicate renderings, each bottom is distinct and, yes, beautiful. We like these butts, and we cannot lie! (Picture book. 2-6)

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January 8, 2021
Preschool-Grade 2 From the tiniest rabbit to the largest Asian elephant, animals have every reason to be proud of their bottoms. One by one or in groups, these animals turn their tails--striped, patterned, and boldly colored--toward the reader. Whether their bottom is heart-shaped like a deer's, fluffy like a sheep's, or spiky like a hedgehog's, each animal presents its wonderful bottom with pride. There's no story to speak of, but the bold and often iridescent-looking illustrations--using collage and featuring the traditional Japanese dying technique of bingata--are masterful, minimalist, and pop wonderfully off of the sparse white background. This off-beat book will appeal most to science-minded young ones, who will be fascinated by an angle of their animal friends they rarely get to see. Plus, it's fun to feature so many underrepresented animals. Where else but a children's picture book could an okapi, alpaca, armadillo, Malayan tapir, and Japanese macaque line up to boastfully present their posteriors?

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