A NATURAL HISTORY OF BUMS

An appreciative, up-close examination of a physical feature that has played a fundamental role in animal evolution.

Authored by a British museum devoted to the crab, this offbeat work invites readers to peer into the “bum TIME VORTEX” so that a pair of side-stepping arthropod guides in the cartoon illustrations can shed light on the history, ubiquity, and amazing variety of uses to which butts are and have been put through. Relatively speaking, “patooties are pretty recent inventions,” but as our narrators retrace this 560-million-year story up to today’s “Age of the Anus,” piles of fascinating nuggets emerge—including the arresting claim that in relation to body size, humans have the most “massive badonkadonk” of all. The book offers a clear and logical explanation for that statement. While chortling at animal ends from the multipurpose cloacae of dinosaurs to the “colorful keisters” of modern mandrills—not to mention the synonym-rich closing glossary—young audiences will easily absorb the message that our posteriors are actually essential players in nearly everything our bodies do for us. The rare human figures in the art are mostly brown-skinned.

The best kind of infodump: both fun and redolent with anatomical insights.