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Sewers and the Rats That Love Them: The Disgusting Story Behind Where It All Goes
Are you ready to go behind the scenes of our amazing sanitation system? From the history of toilets to the mystery of tap water, each book reveals what goes on after the flush and after the trash has been taken out. Youll never look at garbage, toilets, and waste the same way again!
- GenresChildrens
2393 pages, Library Binding
First published August 1, 2008
About the author
Kelly Barnhill
54 books4,311 followersKelly Barnhill is an author and teacher. She won the World Fantasy Award for her novella The Unlicensed Magician, a Parents Choice Gold Award for Iron Hearted Violet, the Charlotte Huck Honor for The Girl Who Drank the Moon, and has been a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award, the Andre Norton award, and the PEN/USA literary prize. She was also a McKnight Artist's Fellowship recipient in Children's Literature. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota with her three children and husband. You can chat with her on her blog at www.kellybarnhill.com
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 13, 2024
First of all, this book has a full two half-pages on rats. So... that's like one page on rats. One page out of 32. It seems like rats were an after thought. I read the book out loud to my husband and he's like, "That's it? That's all there is on rats? You'd think there'd be more, considering the title." You'd think...
Secondly, "the disgusting story behind where it all goes" wasn't disgusting at all. It just went through the technicalities of pipes and sewage lines connecting to each other and then how treatment plants work. Functional? Yes. Disgusting? No.
(The only disgusting part wasn't in the book. Keep reading...)
The only reason I checked this book out was because a school librarian friend who had cancer has needed someone to check out books for her so she could vet them before she purchases for her schools, and she's too tired by the end of the day. This was one of the books by an author for which she requested books.
My husband and I used to read books to each other while folding laundry, usually kids' factoid books. I really miss that. So... One evening, while we were getting ready for bed, and he was brushing his teeth, I picked up this book and read half of it to him. Then, that night he had a vicious, "disgusting" nightmare that he was in a room, the floor was covered with poop, and he had poop all over him. When he woke up, he said, no more. No more sewer-rat book. 😂 And then we continued our discussion from the night before about how toilets work (not the tank part, but how the siphon works). We just couldn't visualize it very well because it wasn't very well explained in the book. (Many parts of the book leave much to the imagination.) He went to work, and an hour later sent me a YouTube video showing how toilets work. Great! Curiousity satisfied!
And then last night, weeks after we had started the book, I decided to return it to the library, but I felt we should just finish it. So... Guess who was brushing his teeth again? Husband. And so I started to read it aloud. He couldn't say anything with a mouth full of toothpaste. He was trapped. I promised him no poop dreams. Maybe rat dreams instead. (Rats? What rats? 🐀💩)
The parts about how sewage is treated were interesting, and we actually had a discussion about that. Like, how do they get the sludge at the bottom of the lagoons? (Answer: they pump the disinfected water out first.)
And one question left unanswered, one that we had heard discussed in the news before, was, with the waste leftover, the stuff that is composted or left to rot in a landfill, what happens with the medications being released through people's pee and poop, or when people used to flush old meds down the toilet? (Please don't do this! The animals apparently get a little crazy, changing sex a la Jurassic Park, the salmon grow arms... stuff like that.)
And what of the viruses (hello, COVID! 👋) that are released through human waste? We supposed that the disinfecting that happens to the water before it's released back into lakes and rivers takes care of the bacteria and viruses. (We hope. Gulp... Pun intended.) Did you know that in some cities they used sewage levels of COVID19 to determine just how infected their cities were? Scientists could tell that the cases of COVID19 being reported were less than how many cases there really were. COVID19 was much more rampant than they'd though! They could tell by measuring the amounts of the virus in the sewage. (I wouldn't want that job... But, wow! Go, science!)
Apparently the sludge, after the treated water is removed usually goes into landfills. Hmmmm. But some cities now compost it. (Might as well use composting toilets, no?) The author then digresses into composting other things like plants (this is a sewer/rat book, but—Rats! Now we need to add straight up "compost" to the very inaccurate title.)
The book ends with a thorough glossary, a list of books to read more (but no rat books listed here either—if you really want rats, you'll have to do your own research), a defunct website, and an index (rats are supposed to be on page 12 as well as on the half-pages mentioned earlier, but, alas—no rats on page 12).
Husband reported no poop dreams this morning. No rat dreams either. No. Rats.
🚫🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀
✅🚽
✅💩💩💩💩💩
Secondly, "the disgusting story behind where it all goes" wasn't disgusting at all. It just went through the technicalities of pipes and sewage lines connecting to each other and then how treatment plants work. Functional? Yes. Disgusting? No.
(The only disgusting part wasn't in the book. Keep reading...)
The only reason I checked this book out was because a school librarian friend who had cancer has needed someone to check out books for her so she could vet them before she purchases for her schools, and she's too tired by the end of the day. This was one of the books by an author for which she requested books.
My husband and I used to read books to each other while folding laundry, usually kids' factoid books. I really miss that. So... One evening, while we were getting ready for bed, and he was brushing his teeth, I picked up this book and read half of it to him. Then, that night he had a vicious, "disgusting" nightmare that he was in a room, the floor was covered with poop, and he had poop all over him. When he woke up, he said, no more. No more sewer-rat book. 😂 And then we continued our discussion from the night before about how toilets work (not the tank part, but how the siphon works). We just couldn't visualize it very well because it wasn't very well explained in the book. (Many parts of the book leave much to the imagination.) He went to work, and an hour later sent me a YouTube video showing how toilets work. Great! Curiousity satisfied!
And then last night, weeks after we had started the book, I decided to return it to the library, but I felt we should just finish it. So... Guess who was brushing his teeth again? Husband. And so I started to read it aloud. He couldn't say anything with a mouth full of toothpaste. He was trapped. I promised him no poop dreams. Maybe rat dreams instead. (Rats? What rats? 🐀💩)
The parts about how sewage is treated were interesting, and we actually had a discussion about that. Like, how do they get the sludge at the bottom of the lagoons? (Answer: they pump the disinfected water out first.)
And one question left unanswered, one that we had heard discussed in the news before, was, with the waste leftover, the stuff that is composted or left to rot in a landfill, what happens with the medications being released through people's pee and poop, or when people used to flush old meds down the toilet? (Please don't do this! The animals apparently get a little crazy, changing sex a la Jurassic Park, the salmon grow arms... stuff like that.)
And what of the viruses (hello, COVID! 👋) that are released through human waste? We supposed that the disinfecting that happens to the water before it's released back into lakes and rivers takes care of the bacteria and viruses. (We hope. Gulp... Pun intended.) Did you know that in some cities they used sewage levels of COVID19 to determine just how infected their cities were? Scientists could tell that the cases of COVID19 being reported were less than how many cases there really were. COVID19 was much more rampant than they'd though! They could tell by measuring the amounts of the virus in the sewage. (I wouldn't want that job... But, wow! Go, science!)
Apparently the sludge, after the treated water is removed usually goes into landfills. Hmmmm. But some cities now compost it. (Might as well use composting toilets, no?) The author then digresses into composting other things like plants (this is a sewer/rat book, but—Rats! Now we need to add straight up "compost" to the very inaccurate title.)
The book ends with a thorough glossary, a list of books to read more (but no rat books listed here either—if you really want rats, you'll have to do your own research), a defunct website, and an index (rats are supposed to be on page 12 as well as on the half-pages mentioned earlier, but, alas—no rats on page 12).
Husband reported no poop dreams this morning. No rat dreams either. No. Rats.
🚫🐀🐀🐀🐀🐀
✅🚽
✅💩💩💩💩💩
Displaying 1 of 1 review