The Big Bang and Other Farts: A Blast Through the Past

＂One day, Daddy Rat sits his baby rats down to watch a very serious documentary about some of the most important moments in history. Sounds boring, right? However, the babies are delighted and surprised when the documentary shows that the reason for life in the universe isn’t the Big Bang but . . . the Big Fart! It turns out, every single major historical event was caused by, you guessed it -- a fart! The extinction of the dinosaurs, the end of the Ice Age . . . even the secret behind the Mona Lisa’s smile can all be traced to the passing of gas. For Daddy Rat, these smelly revelations are simply too much. But for the baby rats (and for young readers everywhere), this is the best show ever!＂ --

DAISY BIRD is the pseudonym for Jacky Colliss Harvey, the New York Times bestselling author of Red: A History of the Redhead, My Life As A Redhead: A Journal, The Animal’s Companion and Walking Pepys’s London. She studied English at Cambridge University and art history at the Courtauld Institute. She has worked in museum publishing and is a commentator and reviewer who speaks on the arts and their relation to popular culture. She divides her time between London and New York.

MARIANNA COPPO is an author/illustrator from Italy. She studied editorial illustration at MiMaster in Milan and now focuses on freelance illustration. Her debut picture book, Petra, received starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly and Booklist, and was shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal. She is also the creator of Ray, Thingamabob, A Very Late Story, Such a Good Boy and, with author Daisy Bird, Whose Poo?. Her most recent book is The Boy and the Mountain.