"The Day My Bum Went Psycho"

[Jusenkyo no Pikachu]

I caught an ABC Radio interview with Andy Griffiths, discussing this book, and I decided to check it out (it acquired a lot of publicity here after the baby's bum on the front cover got pulled from a poster advertising National Literacy Week). After all, what kid could not resist a book that's all about bums? And after reading it, I couldn't resist posting about it.

Well, it is a pretty darned odd book.

The story is about a kid called Zack. Late one night, Zack's bum jumps off his body and goes off to the school oval. Zack pursues his bum, but fails to catch it and learns that all the bums in the world are currently heading en masse to fill up an extinct volcano (now a "bumcano"), from which they will all release their gas. So he teams up with a legendary team of bum-hunters (the "B-team", involving the Kisser, the Smacker and the Kicker) and Eleanor Sterne (daughter of the legendary bum-fighter Silas Sterne). And then he sets out on his trek through the Windy Desert (where it's an ill hallucinogenic wind that blows no man good), the Brown Forest (home of Stenchgantor, the Great Unwiped Bum) and finally into the bumcano, where he shall face the Great White Bum--the most evil bum in all of creation.

So there. I've gone and used the word "bum" over and over again in a post. Of course, it is kind of a funny word, especially when thinking it means something different in America (NOTE TO AMERICANS: THe word "fanny" is far more offensive down here than it is up there, as it means something completely different).

However, as ludicrous as the situation is, I still should admit that although I laughed in Austin Powers, I am one of the millions put off by poo. And there is quite a bit of it (the aforementioned unwiped bum for starters, although that's more implied than anything else, and the stuff is never mentioned). The reasoning is valid, after all kids are absolutely fascinated by the stuff (I myself recall playing with stuffed animals that would talk a lot about how they went to the dunny). Oh, and speaking of dunnies, there is a reference made in this to a guy named Dunnycan. Just thought I'd let ya know.

However, it's certainly a story you and your bum will never forget.

The book has been released in America as The Day My Butt Went Psycho. I have yet to see what they do to the Dunnycan guy.