There's a Zoo in your Poo! It needs a Zookeeper And that Keeper is YOU!
Did you know that trillions of tiny bugs live in and on all of us? And there's a Zoo of bugs in our poo. But which are the good bugs and which are the bad? What should we eat to keep our good bugs happy and our body strong?
Get to the guts of what you need to know about you and your poo.
Professor Felice Jacka is a world expert in the field of Nutritional Psychiatry and gut health. Teacher and musician Rob Craw is a world expert at drawing bugs!
They want kids to know all about the amazing stuff going on in their bodies.
Get ready for a journey inside the most exciting of places ... YOU!
When Pan Macmillan offered me this one to read I jumped at the chance. Does that sound weird? I have young children, 6 and 3 years old – and they LOVE anything poo related. I thought they would enjoy this one!
There’s a zoo in my poo is a cute little book that delves into the gut microbiome and describes how important these little critters are to our health and wellbeing. I assumed it would just be a superficial exploration about how important good food is to the zoo, however it actually goes into quite a depth about our insides.
I started reading this to my 6-year-old. I must admit it was a bit beyond him. Even though it is aimed at children, there are still a lot of big words and phrases that I thought had him zoning out. I was going to abandon it and save it for a time when he is a little bit bigger. So one night I put it aside.
However… To my surprise, he started asking to read the poo book. I thought he hadn’t retained much of it so I started asking him questions about it and he told me that there are bugs that live in my tummy and poo that help me get healthy and I need to feed them good food.
Well, BLOW ME DOWN! Sure, he doesn’t quite understand what a lot of it means, but he is starting to get the gist of it. The cute illustrations, colourful fonts and lots of talk about fun things (poo, smells, poo trains, snot and boogers) have absolutely left an impression, and the more we read it in future, the more he is going to understand it at a deeper level.
Even my 3-year-old loved the illustrations and knows where her favourite “poo bug” drawings in the book are! Her attention span didn’t last long enough for her to join us in reading it though.
Would I recommend There’s a Zoo in My Poo? Yes for sure! Any primary-school-aged child (or even an adult who doesn’t know much about this stuff) will appreciate the clear and fascinating explanations of the wonderful world of our guts and poop!
Many thanks to Pan Macmillan for the copy of There’s a Zoo in My Poo to read and review with the kids.
It’s no secret that kids love books about bodily functions. There are a plethora of books to choose from about poos and farts. These books tend to be more fun than educational emphasising the fact that poos and farts are a normal part of life.
Professor Felice Jacka goes a whole lot further with her educational and fun children’s book There’s a Zoo in My Poo to explain gut health with zany illustrations and catchy rhymes. The book tells us all about the bugs that live in our gut, both good and bad, the food that we eat and the effect it has on these bugs, what the good bugs feed on, healthy food for a healthy body and brain.
My six year old co-reader really enjoyed the concept of being the zookeeper of her body and once I explained that the bugs inside your body aren’t like insect type bugs but tiny invisible bugs you can’t see, she was much more receptive to the idea of how they lived inside you.
There is quite a lot of information in this 64 page book and I found it better to concentrate on a small area of the book at a time. The catchy rhyming poems were a great feeder into the more in-depth ins and outs of the workings of the gastrointestinal tract.
I knew the book was having some effect when I was asked if the food she was eating was feeding her good bugs or bad bugs. That’s a win!
There’s a Zoo in My Poo focuses on the principles of gut health with colourful microbes and entertaining prose making this complex topic easier for children, and adults, to understand. Gut health is an important topic and you can never start too young to teach children about healthy eating. It is great to see a children’s book addressing the ‘why’ of healthy eating. It’s a book that can be pulled out whenever your children’s eating habits go off track.
Read together from 6+ Read alone from 8+ *I received a copy from the publisher
“Getting to the guts of what makes a healthy, happy you.” Honestly, I feel like this book should really be mandatory reading for everyone! There’s just such a charming, sweet and endearing aspect to this educational story that everyone can surely appreciate! There’s A Zoo In My Poo takes readers through an educational route, talking us through everything that goes on in our bodies, the quests that go on in our digestive systems as we process what we eat and how our body digests everything, combating those good bugs to help keep everything in check and to make sure we keep in tip top form! I thoroughly enjoyed the quirky but endearing illustrations dotted throughout this book, accompanying Felice Jacka’s educational yet entertaining text about everything that the body needs to digest and how it fights off those nasty bacterias, ‘vegetables and fruit give bad bugs the boot’ and ‘Grains! Great for bodies and brains!’ with top tips throughout too regarding how to best nurture your digestive system. There’s A Zoo in My Poo also discusses the negative impact on one’s body that junk food has, something which I personally think we all need to be gently reminded of from time to time! As someone who’s definitely not averse to indulging from time to time, I’m really glad I got to experience this book because it’s really echoed for me how much we all need to look after our bodies and why too much junk isn’t helpful at all in the long run. Across the educational tone of the text, paired with whimsical and completely fun illustrations make for total Dr Suess vibes in this lovely book, which also made me appreciate the hard work our bodies go through to help us fight off those pesky bad bugs! They can’t do it alone though so do remember to follow the healthy top tips throughout this book to look after you! A huge thank you to Pan Macmillan Australia for sending me a finished copy of this book to read and review! All thoughts are my own, it’s out today in Australia so go, go!
More reviews can be found on my blog brooklynthebookworm.wordpress.com ☺️
I had only just placed this book on my desk when Ethan spotted it, picked it up and proclaimed “Ohhhh, can you read this to me mummy” – So that’s a win for the overall physical look of the book – it looks just like a little kids picture book with its bright glossy hardcover and full-color pages printed on high-quality paper.
The artwork is reminiscent of Dr. Seuss, as are the chapter headings and the little poems that accompany them. Dr. Seuss vibes! always a win in my book!
The main text of the book is interesting and informative, delving into how the gut actually works digesting food, fueling the body, the connection between mood and food and so much more. As an adult, I can appreciate the way the author has organised the data and facts into something digestible for a younger audience, and I applaud the book’s good intentions, but my two did struggle with the large info blocks. We took two breaks while reading it, poping in two just-for-fun silly picture books for a rest and that seemed to do the trick for Riley (7-yrs-old) at least, who afterward said he liked the book.
So Riley (7) and I liked it, but Ethan (3) lost interest once we got to the large chunks of text – I’d say, this is a book best suited for 6 to 10 year olds. I can see it being a classroom hit, with the teachers and primary school students, which is what I think the author was going for.
At the back of the book are some gut health recipes with fun titles! I am keen to make some of these with the boys, as I think the funny names and being apart of making the food concoctions might just get them excited enough to get the courage to try eating them – big win right there!
In the words of my 6yr old..."This is such a good book!" 🌟 Initially drawn to the fun title 'There's a Zoo in My Poo', which of course set my 6 & 3yr olds into fits of giggles, we found this book by Professor Felice Jacka & Rob Craw to be very informative. We enjoyed learning about good & bad bugs, how different food & bugs affect our bodies and how to be good Zookeepers. The funny illustrations & rhyming in the text was a huge hit and kept them engaged all the way through, especially with concepts that were a bit more advanced for their age. They found the topics of digestion, the Bristol Stool Chart and eating good zoo foods vs junk food particularly fascinating. They also loved the recipes at the back and are keen to have Farty Toast for breakfast tomorrow 🤭 Afterwards my kiddos were eager to tell me in their own words what There's a Zoo in My Poo taught them: 💩 "don't eat too much junk food because junk food affects your brain and makes good bugs sick or die" 💩 "eat more of the right types of food to get the right type of poo" 💩 "farting can be good for you... but leave the room if you need to fart" 🤣 💩 "I don't like to eat some vegies as much but I have to if I want to be a good Zookeeper" (then my 6yr old suggested I could hide onions/zucchini/broccoli etc in pasta sauce and burger patties) There's a Zoo in My Poo made learning fun and is a great resource for young minds to be empowered to making healthy choices. This #childrensbook is now available in all good bookstores Huge thanks @macmillanaus for sending this copy our way
Maybe 4.5 stars. This is an excellent book, fun and educational. Kids are just going to love the poo references, but the book actually provides quite a lot of information about our insides and the microscopic creatures that are part of it. I loved the concept of us being "zookeepers" for all our microbes & the guidelines on how we can keep our system healthy. Excellent.