Dung for Dinner: A Stomach-Churning Look at the Animal Poop, Pee, Vomit, and Secretions that People Have Eaten (and Often Still Do!)

by Christine Virnig, Korwin Briggs (Illustrator)

Overview

Discover the stomach-churning truth about the animal poop, pee, vomit, and secretions that humans have eaten throughout history—and sometimes still do—in Christine Virnig's laugh-out-loud middle-grade nonfiction debut. Dung for Dinner is illustrated by Korwin Briggs.

From Roman charioteers scarfing wild boar dung to astronauts guzzling their own pee to today's kids spreading insect vomit on their toast, this humorous compendium is chock-full of history, science, and fascinatingly gross facts. Bug secretions coating your candy corn? Rodent poop in your popcorn? Physicians tasting their patients' pee? It’s deliciously disgusting!

*SCBWI Golden Kite Award Finalist for Older Nonfiction

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250246806
Publisher:	Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Publication date:	07/21/2020
Series:	Dung for Dinner , #1
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
Lexile:	960L (what's this?)
File size:	13 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Christine Virnig makes her kidlit debut with Dung for Dinner. Christine is a pediatric physician specializing in allergies where—in addition to dodging the occasional snot rocket or projectile vomit—she gets to talk about topics that most adults find downright repulsive, like phlegm, snot, and dust mite poo. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin with her husband, two children, and two hairball producers.

Korwin Briggs is a writer and illustrator who makes comics, infographics, and books about academic stuff like history and science. He’s the author of a webcomic called Veritable Hokum, as well as Gods and Heroes: Mythology Around the World; The Invention Hunters Discover How Machines Work; and The Invention Hunters Discover How Electricity Works. Since graduating, he’s been working as a professional freelance artist in a couple of different cities (currently New York).

Christine Virnig made her kidlit debut with Dung for Dinner. As a former pediatric physician who specialized in allergies, Christine is very used to talking about topics that most adults find downright repulsive. Topics like phlegm and snot and dust mite poo. Nowadays Christine spends her days writing fiction and nonfiction for kids. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin with her husband, two daughters, one incredibly lazy cat, and a rather unfortunate number of dust bunnies.
Korwin Briggs is a writer and illustrator who makes comics, infographics, and books about academic stuff like history and science. He’s the author of a webcomic called Veritable Hokum, as well as Gods and Heroes: Mythology Around the World; The Invention Hunters Discover How Machines Work; and The Invention Hunters Discover How Electricity Works. Since graduating, he’s been working as a professional freelance artist in a couple of different cities (currently New York).

Table of Contents

Foreword v

A Warning! viii

Part 1 Health & Medicine

Chapter 1 Tylenol a la Boar Dung 3

Chapter 2 Eat Poop to Stop Pooping 10

Chapter 3 Doctors Used to Taste What? 17

Chapter 4 Pearly White Pearly Whites 26

Chapter 5 Sweet, Sweet Pee 34

Chapter 6 Help! It's the Black Death! 41

Chapter 7 Move Over, Kidney Transplants, Make Way for Poop Transplants 52

Chapter 8 Space Water 61

Part 2 Your Lunch Box

Chapter 9 Scrumptious Whale Secretions 71

Chapter 10 Wait! What's in My Candy Corn? 79

Chapter 11 The Odoriferous Beaver Butt 86

Chapter 12 Hidden Surprises! 94

Chapter 13 Saliva, Anyone? 102

Chapter 14 Sweet Insect Vomit 110

Chapter 15 Poop Coffee 119

Chapter 16 Fly Vomit, Yummy! 128

Chapter 17 Munching Some Maggot Cheese 135

Author's Note 145

A Note About Products 147

Selected Bibliography 151

Index 163

Editorial Reviews

"Jokes, the odd common-sense advisory, and stomach-churning historical incidents. [Virnig] also spreads plenty of science around… Adds nuance to the old saw that we are what we eat…in an all-too-informative way." —Kirkus Reviews on Dung for Dinner

"Physician and author Virnig encourages readers to think again as she describes myriad ways that people have consumed animal poop, pee, vomit, and other bodily fluids. . . Get ready to gulp!" —Booklist on Dung for Dinner

From the Publisher

2020-03-29
Poop has been put to enough worthy uses down the years to fill a book. “This is not that book.”

Instead the author, a pediatric physician, zeroes in on the “poop, pee, vomit, and secretions that people put in their mouths.” Why? “Because that’s way more fun. And way more gross.” Dispelling any lingering reader hesitancy with a not-altogether-superfluous trigger warning, she proceeds to emit a stream of anecdotal observations—on how substances including boar dung, pus, and ox snot were ingested for medicinal purposes (fancied or otherwise) in ancient times and fecal transplants today treat intestinal infections; on the insect origins of the glaze used in the manufacture of candy corn and other sweets; on honey (“sweet insect vomit”) and more-localized delicacies such as haggis and jellied moose nose; what houseflies do when they land on your food; and the many uses of maggots, to name a few. Along the way she also tucks in bad jokes, the odd common-sense advisory, and stomach-churning historical incidents. She also spreads plenty of science around…including a mention of the FDA’s online Food Defect Levels Handbook that will definitely send readers racing for their keyboards. Briggs adds line cartoons (not seen in finished form), from a honey jar with a vomiting bee on the label to an ancient Roman toilet complete with communal butt-wiping xylospongium. Text type and graphics are all printed in appropriately brown tones, including humans of diverse racial presentations.

Adds nuance to the old saw that we are what we eat…in an all-too-informative way. (bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 9-12)

Kirkus Reviews