Review by Ian Keogh

Do you believe poo is the most interesting and important substance in the entire universe? In one sense that doesn’t matter, as Poo Crew Adventures isn’t aimed at you, but at the youngster in your life whose questions you may be fobbing off by telling them poo* is disgusting and then closing down the conversation. Thankfully James Turner and Steve May’s odiferous explanations may have sneaked into the library.

The impression of May’s cover to the contrary, what he and Turner have produced is an educational explanation of what poo is, from how it’s formed to where it ends up. Along the way they discuss teeth, diet, digestion of some creatures as well as humans, nutrition, urine, the history of toilets and so much more, all revealed by Professor Poo with utter delight. He’s the poo in a white lab coat complete with pens in the pocket seen on the cover. The cover also promises this is overflowing with facts, and that’s no lie. As an example, Turner’s research reveals that were the average human’s food intake to be multiplied over a lifetime, we each eat the equivalent of three elephants.

May’s cartooning is kept simple, but it’s energetic and funny, ensuring there’s the illicit thrill of reading a book about poo, but because it generates laughs much will be remembered. The largest kidney stone ever removed being drawn as an equivalent size to a pineapple and the longest tapeworm ever removed stretching to a length of three buses are memories that’ll take some shifting.

Those facts just keep coming, and they’re compulsively entertaining. 96 bags of poo remain on the moon. There’s even thrilling adventure as a fatberg threatens to derail our heroes, but it all ends in the sewage treatment plant as planned.

Calling anything to do with poo an absolute delight is the sort of contradiction that sends the brain into diablkarm throgs, but dash it, Journey to Poo-Topia is an absolute delight.

*or what ever synonym you use