Picture books often tackle the hard questions: How are babies made? What happens when a loved one dies? And now: What should you do if a dragon bites off your butt? Such is the fate of the knight at the heart of this rhyming romp: “Bereft and bumless, the knight cried and cried. / For without his lovely bottom, / he surely couldn’t ride!” There are teeth marks where his butt used to be; what’s a bottomless knight who is suddenly the subject of stares to do? And how is he supposed to win the love of the princess now? Fortunately, he sees an ad for a “bum shop” while reading a magazine. He manages to ride his bike to the store, where he encounters a panoply of phony posteriors. After the knight picks out his new butt, he gets the girl, but not before readers get several glimpses of the knight’s pink, hair-speckled ersatz rear. In Bruijn’s bustling but tidy art, the knight runs the gamut of cartoon emotions. Van Teunenbroek’s rhymes are, while sometimes rhythmically challenged (perhaps a result of the book’s translation from Dutch), often quite clever, and there’s a thoughtful message here about accepting imperfections or differences. The most important takeaway, however? Like butts, this story is hilarious. The knight and the princess are pale-skinned; the supporting cast varies in skin tone.
