Peculiar Picks are a selection of odd, funny, interesting, curious, moving, irreverent, and otherwise wonderfully awesome, but perhaps not well known, reads. Peculiar Picks are books for younger readers and their grown-ups, handpicked by the Library's Youth Services Manager, Joshua Carlson.

Rear End Reads. Tail Tales. Stern Stories.
Great Glutes. Rump Recommendations.
Peculiar Posterior Picks.

In other words:
Butt Books.

I had so many fun names for today’s Peculiar Picks (including some I couldn’t include in this family friendly column) featuring the (probably) most laugh-inducing part of the body: the hilarious heinie.

Chicken Cheeks by Michael Ian Black, illustrated by Kevin Hawkes
Library Catalog
Michael Ian Black provides even more fantastic fanny words in this delightful amusing story of stacking animals drawn by the great Kevin Hawkes. You can even check out Michael Ian Black, dressed in a chicken costume, reading the book here:

Always Lots of Heinies at the Zoo by Ayun Halliday, illustrations by Dan Santat
Library Catalog
A family trip to the zoo is a fantastic thing. Like Chicken Cheeks, this is another book to explore the glorious gluteus maximuses of the animal kingdom. Of course, humans are animals, too…

I mentioned my enjoyment of Dan Santat’s artwork in my last Peculiar Picks and his expressive style does not disappoint in Always Lots of Heinies at the Zoo.

 

Chicken Butt! and Chicken Butt’s Back! by Erica S. Perl, illustrated by Henry Cole
OverDrive / Library Catalog
Guaranteed for a laugh! Based entirely on the classic groan-inducing, funnybone-tickling kids joke:

Guess what? What? Chicken butt!

These two books take that joke, and to the frustration of the child’s parents over both books, expands it to include other chicken body parts, and then the rear ends of other things from cats, to deer, to witches. Both books, to their merit, even manage to, somehow, have underwear related jokes, including a version of the coup de grȃce of kids jokes:

… under there. …under where? You said … underwear!

 

Butts Are Everywhere by Jonathan Stutzman, illustrated by Heather Fox
OverDrive / Library Catalog
Butts Are Everywhere not only goes into the prevalence of patooties, butt also an even more impressive list of names for the behind than we have seen from the above books. It even covers what they do: from being a great place to sit to what comes out of them. (Did you know that a manatee’s gas passing helps them swim faster?)

This book definitely makes the case that: