It’s Sunday morning so you might be thinking I made a spelling error in the title. Perhaps you expected Eschatology for Beginners. Eschatology is the theological study of end times, death, judgement, heaven & hell. Really deep serious ideas. No, I really meant scatology. Scatology is the study of poop. Sometimes deep, but often funny, just like Brief Thief.
Author Michael Escoffier tells the hilarious story of Leon, who eats a big breakfast & has to go. Alas, after answering the call of nature, he realizes there is no toilet paper. Fortunately, he spies a pair of undies on a branch, uses them, then tosses them in a bush and walks away. Then comes the voice. Is his conscience pricking him? It would seem so and Leon has some regrets but makes amends. Just when you think the book is over, there is a twist, which made me laugh out loud.
Kris Di Giacomo’s illustrations are humorous and I like that Leon and the voice have different fonts.
What made this an especially funny book is a kindergarten incident I had a couple of weeks ago. I was walking through the kinder hall and a little voice called to me from the boys’ bathroom, “Teacher ,help.”. Standing in the doorway was a kinder boy with his pants around his ankles. He looked unharmed. I couldn’t really get him to explain what was wrong but managed to get his name and his teacher’s name. I hustled to her room and she came to the rescue. She knew the right questions to ask and it turned out that there was no toilet paper in his stall. She told him to go look in the next stall and voila, problem solved. Potty stuff happens all the time and it often makes for a great story. I shared my kinder story at a staff meeting. I bet you can easily find a young reader who would find Brief Thief hilarious.
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