Title: Does it Fart?: The Definitive Field Guide to Animal Flatulence
Author: Dani Rabaiotti and Nick Caruso, Illustrated by Ethan Kocak
Publication Date: April 3, 2018
Pages: 144
Publisher: Hachette Books
Date Started: July 4, 2018
Date Finished: July 6, 2018
Format: Hardcover

I didn’t know how badly I needed this book, or how much this vital information was missing from my life. You know you’ve asked this all-important question before of an animal: Does it fart? Well, now there is a nifty field guide that answers many of the long standing questions about flatulence.

*Spoiler alert*

From reading this book, I can now with confidence declare:

Yes

Yes

Yes

In all seriousness, this book was fantastic. It was short, yet still contained so much information. And the illustrations were superb. Each page covered a different animal, ranging from vertebrates to insects to extinct organisms. Not only was there information on the ability for each individual to pass gas (which had to first be carefully defined!) but also relevant information on the digestive process, diet, and miscellaneous facts about the animal. Being just over 100 pages, it was a quick and enjoyable read.

I think the story and motivation behind this book is also worth mentioning. This book all started as a series of Tweets, where one curious individual inquired about farts. Science Twitter is a magical thing, and represents a community of scientists that are happy and willing to discuss science with anyone who will listen. And so began a series of questions regarding farts, which was eventually compiled into this book. If you don’t follow any scientists on Twitter, I highly recommend you do. The authors of this book (@DaniRabaiotti and @PlethodoNick) are great places to start. I also recently started following @SarahMackAttack and my life has never been more full of adorable little squids.

Overall, 4.5/5 moose