I’m staying with my sister in Berlin, Germany right now. She has a 14-month-old son and I’ve learned a lot from seeing my sister’s and her husband’s new lives. First and foremost: don’t have kids. Second, if you ignore my advice, crap will become a big part of your life.
My nephew trying out some possible future careers
From changing diapers 38 times a day to attempting to rush the kid to the toilet every time he says the word ‘crap’ (or in this case the equivalent German word), which happens every few minutes, to the seemingly constant smell wafting off him, you just can’t get away from the stuff.
The other day we took him to a restaurant and within minutes, he had filled his diaper. As usual, he was proud of his achievement and announced it loudly to the poor waiter who came by to take our order as well as anyone else within earshot, which included most of central Berlin.
Companies that make diapers and toilet seats for babies have taken full advantage of the ubiquitous presence of crap in young parents’ lives, but what about other business opportunities? How about children’s books? Funny you should ask. A quick browse through my nephew’s bookshelf reveals this little gem:
It’s been translated into English as The Story of the Little Mole Who Went in Search of Whodunit, but a more accurate translation would be About the Little Mole Who Wanted to Know Who Pooped on His Head.
The story is extremely complex with multiple layers of psychological intrigue unseen since Dostoevsky, but I’ll try to simplify it for you. One morning, the little mole pops out of his hole just in time for a pile of crap to fall on his head.
He spends the rest of the day going around to various animals and asking them if they were the ones who pooped on his head.
While investigating the incident, he continues to wear his crap hat; I have no idea why he doesn’t take a quick shower first—clearly there is some deeper symbolism here that is just way above my head. Each animal in turn explains that they couldn’t have been the culprit, since their crap does not look like the pile on the mole’s head. Then they demonstrate.
Their demonstrations come with written German sound effect words that perfectly fit what the poop in question might sound like, but most, like the sound effect for the cow pie above, are simply untranslatable. Others, like the rabbit, can be translated more easily.
Basically, the rabbit poop fires out like a machine gun with a ‘ratatat’ sound effect. After making his rounds of the farm, the mole eventually happens on some flies who are busy—you guessed it!—eating a pile of crap. As connoisseurs of poop, they not only eat the mole’s head clean, but they are also able to identify the culprit.
It turns out it was a local dog, who coincidentally has the most German name ever: Hans-Heinerich. As I am new to the world of the little mole, I did not realize this, but my sister informs me that Hans-Heinerich the dog and the little mole have somewhat of an ongoing rivalry.
Given that, the mole is naturally unable to let the affront go and climbs up on the dog house to quickly fire off a little sausage that lands, with its own little ‘pling’ effect, directly on the dog’s head. Revenge complete.
Now, some of you may feel the subject matter of this literary masterpiece is completely inappropriate for a young child—the Amazon.com link I posted above has a few one-star reviews that certainly think so—but personally I see no harm.
My sister’s, brother-in-law’s and nephew’s lives basically revolve around crap—a natural human function—and anyone who’s been to a farm with a child knows that a natural curiosity will draw the child to the subject, so why not face it head on and discuss it openly. Besides, it’s a German book and the Germans are world famous for enjoying crap:
This book seems a little over the top, or maybe beneath the bottom would be more appropriate. I like the illustrations but question the message. I recall a children’s book when our son was small called, “Everything Poops,” but I don’t remember it encouraging poop warfare.
I’m actually more worried it encourages wearing it as a hat.
My son received this book from my brother and his wife, who live in Germany. This must be a German thing although there are English language translations for this SERIES of books. This was supposedly my niece and nephews’ favorite book when they were growing up. My son is 4 and poop is often the hot topic in the preschool. At this age, poop and pee are interchanged for all kinds of words to great dramatic effect. This book is a neat little variation on the everybody poops concept. It talks about the different types, sizes and shapes of animal poop, which I suppose everyone learns about eventually. My son thought it was funny. It certainly was a workout for me to translate, but it didn’t seem like such a chore after the first page or two. At first, I was appalled that my brother would send my son this book, but upon thinking about it, it seemed only natural. He is a boy after all. Happy reading.
I totally agree. Whether they have this book or not, kids (ok, maybe just boys) that age will have poop on their mind, so I don’t really see any harm. I didn’t have this book growing up and I actually resorted to writing my own poop-themed masterpiece, complete with (very poor) illustrations. It’s been over 30 years and I’m still waiting to hear from a publisher…
I was recently in Japan and wanted to pick up a children’s book for my 3.5 year old daughter. I ran across this one where the title was in German but translated into Japanese. The illustrations alone caused the purchase to happen. This is currently my daughter’s favorite book – i’m not sure if it’s the pictures or the ever-changing dialog we create each time it is read. I’m fearful the book’s magic would be dispelled if we ever acquire an English translation. The bottom line: this is a funny book! Most importantly though is the fact poop is funny. Especially on one’s head.
Making up your own dialog is probably much funnier than the original anyway. Plus it makes each rereading of the story unique. One thing I learned from my nephew is that kids like to read the same books over and over again to the point where you get so sick of constantly reading the same thing, that I think I would just start making up my own words anyway–just to stay sane.
I agree with every factor that you have pointed out. Thank you for sharing your beautiful thoughts on this.