Butt or Face? Revenge of the Butts - Kari Lavelle - ★★★★

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AUTHOR: Kari Lavelle
GENRE: Children's Nonfiction, Animals
RATING: 4 stars.

In a Nutshell: Quite similar to the first book BUTT with new animals and new butts and faces to sort out from. Great as a classroom resource.


When I had read 'Butt or Face?', I wish I had known that there was a second book in the offing. I used all my *booty*licious puns in that review, and have *bottom*ed out of *face*tious vocabulary. Kindly *ass*cuse the lack of *cheek*iness in the rest of this write-up.

The format is the same as in the first book. We have some tricky photos of some part of an animal’s anatomy, and the reader has to answer a simple question – is it a butt or a face?

As kids enjoy potty humour, I am sure they will have fun with their guesses. To add to the fun, ask kids if they can guess which animal, or even which species the depicted butt or face belongs to. That is much, much trickier!

The answer is provided on the next page, along with the complete photo of the creature. (I love books that present animal facts with actual pictures instead of using illustrations – it makes a huge difference.) This is accompanied by some interesting trivia about the animal, which comes under some *fanny*tastic headings. (Yay! One pun slipped in!)

I read this book along with my younger daughter, and we had a nice time competing over who could guess the most right answers. (It was a tie!) A couple of the animals were too familiar to both of us, but there were enough novel creatures to keep us both happy. Some of them are so weird-looking that I couldn’t figure out where the butt or face was even after seeing the whole image.

There is a little author’s note about what inspired this series. I can’t recollect if this was present in the first book as well, but I enjoyed reading it as it contained quite an interesting fact.

Finally, there’s a table, detailing the habitats and the eating preferences of the animals pictured in the book.

The only reason I am not going higher in my rating is that it offered exactly the same experience as the first book, which is great for consistency but also feels like too much of a good thing. There’s no pushing of the bar in terms of novelty. (Such a tough demand to make of an author, right?)

All in all, this is a fun and informative read that ought to work excellently in classrooms as a guessing game. The humour will appeal to the target age of 6-10 years. Younger ones can also have fun guessing the butt or face part, but the trivia might be too advanced for them in vocabulary.

My thanks to Sourcebooks Kids and NetGalley for the DRC of “Butt or Face? Revenge of the Butts”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

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