Translated from the Australian (sold Down Under as "The Day My Bum Went Psycho"), this adventure begins with the nighttime flight of our 12-year-old protagonist Zach's pale little heinie and doesn't let up for over 200 pages--most of which are filled almost exclusively with the word "butt." At first, Zach believes his butt might be leading some sort of minor butt rebellion, but the plot quickly thickens to include a global army of feral butts, the "greatest buttcano in the history of the world," and a head-butt "rearrangement" conspiracy that goes all the way to the... um, bottom. Our well-meaning but naive hero Zach soon gets mixed up with the butt-fighting "B-team" (the Kicker, the Kisser, and the Smacker, who all "love the smell of freshly smacked butt in the morning!"), fires his very first 4502-LL ("The LL stood for Laxative Launcher"), learns how to "butt-hop" ("The average butt has enough gas to propel itself and a rider for twenty minutes...."), and goes on a long, wild chase involving cluster butts, buttcatchers, kamikaze butts, stinkants, and even the fearsome Stenchgantor, "the Great Unwiped Butt." (And that's not even counting all those seagoing butt piranhas and poopoises.)

Griffiths surely likes the cheap laughs and doesn't miss a single opportunity for buttly wordplay (from "high-frequency emissions" to the smell-ranking "Rectum scale"), but that doesn't make The Day My Butt Went Psycho any less clever--the fast-moving plot has as many double-crosses as double entendres, and Griffiths weaves in some pretty brilliant ideas. Who knew you could have a death throe scene between a butt and its owner? Also includes a snarky butt glossary in the book's... uh, rear. (Ages 9 to 12) --Paul Hughes [close]