The Curious Kid's Gross Book of Why

Why do we fart? Why is snot green? Why do dogs sniff each other's bottoms? Children ask the questions grown-ups pretend not to hear, and they deserve a real answer, not a change of subject.

The Curious Kid's Gross Book of Why answers 150 of them, in eight sections: Wind, Burps and Bottoms. Snot, Spit and Sneezes. Skin, Scabs and Sweat. Ears, Eyes, Teeth and Hair. Bugs and Creepy Crawlies. Animals Doing Disgusting Things. Food Gone Wrong. Germs, Guts and the Inside of You.

Each answer is about a hundred words: long enough to explain properly, short enough to read aloud in under a minute without losing anyone at the table. Every question has its own ink drawing of a curious boy and his scruffy terrier getting far too close to the subject, a fact box on a rotation of Big Number, Did You Know and Try This, and every section ends with a five-question quiz.

Answers you can trust. Gross, yes. Made up, never. Every answer was written against two independent institutional sources, health services, universities, natural history museums and peer-reviewed journals, then checked a second time at the sentence level before it went to print. Where scientists genuinely do not know yet, the book says so.

Built for reading, not testing. Open it anywhere. Large 7 by 10 inch pages, one question to a page, a drawing beside each one. It works at bedtime, in the car, at the dinner table and on a rainy Sunday, because it is the kind of gross that makes a child want to read it out loud rather than the kind that makes them look away.

Book two. This is the second title from The Gentle Book Shop, following The Curious Kid's Big Book of Why, in the same 7 by 10 inch format and checked to the same standard, for the child who has already asked why the sky is blue and now wants to know why farts smell.

A gift that gets used. For a birthday, for Christmas, for the reluctant reader who will pick up anything with the word gross on the cover, and for the child who asks the questions nobody else will answer honestly. It is the kind of book that lives on the kitchen table, gets read aloud at the worst possible moment, and gets asked for again.

What is inside:
150 questions across 8 sections.
150 drawings, one for every question.
Answers written against two independent institutional sources and checked at the sentence level.
Where the science is unsettled, the book says so.
A fact box and a five-question quiz in every section.
Illustrated 7 by 10 inch paperback, 190 pages.
Written for ages 6 to 12, and honest enough for the adult reading it out.