“There’s quite a lot here to digest. In a mix of rhymed general statements and, in smaller type, pithy prose explanations, Kurtz drops nuggets of information about what poop is, how the excrement of a dozen types of zoo animals differs in shape and composition, what said animals do with their poop in nature, and the many ways zoos (and gardeners) study and recycle all those tons of “zoo-doo.” She closes with the provocative observation that more intelligent and socialized primates tend to fling their poop with more accuracy than their duller cohorts—as, perhaps, “a form of communication and self-expression.” Reflecting what young readers will be doing by this point, Black illustrates the author’s final sally with a troop of heartily laughing monkeys. In fact, all the creatures in these brightly colored cartoon illustrations, even the earthworms, are smiling. So are most of the notably diverse cast of human workers (a few pooper-scoopers look understandably beleaguered), as befits both the topic and the tone of this fresh scoop on poop.”