My Brother’s Butt is Haunted
By Dan Poblocki
Get ready for a buttload of laughs in this hilarious picture book about a pair of siblings who face a frightening question—can butts be haunted? Featuring a glow-in-the-dark cover!
Two siblings are going to sleep over at Gramma and Grampa’s creepy new house for the very first time. Their neighbors say there’s a ghost living there, but these kids definitely aren’t scared. That is…until the dead of night, when strange sounds and smells start coming from the older brother’s pants. There’s only one logical conclusion… His butt must be haunted!
Filled with gas, ghosts, and plenty of giggles, this book will inspire endless rereads as it turns farts into the butt of the joke.
“In Sanchez’s illustrations, green and yellow swirls pop against the muted gloom of the house; readers will positively smell the noxious fumes. From the opening lines—”Tonight is a big stinkin’ deal”—all the way through to the conclusion, this tale will have readers in stitches with its goofy wordplay.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Hold onto your butts or they might get haunted!… With plenty of onomatopoeia and flatulent green clouds to animate the eerie chase that ensues, this haunted-butt mystery will entrance fans of ghosts and gas jokes alike.”—Booklist
My Brother’s Butt is Haunted started with a phone call. I was on a trip back in the Midwest when my agent, Alex Gehringer (the best ever) at The Bright Agency, called me up, “Boy, I’ve got a good one for you.” She pitched it as hilarious, spooky, perfect for Halloween, and full of fart jokes. In other words, right up my alley. One look at the title and I was in.
I painted the book in colored pencil and Photoshop, keeping the house dark and cold so the yellow-green “ghost” could glow against it. The cover glows in the dark, and I worked with the Penguin Workshop design team on the sound-effect typography, so every WUH-WOOO… FFFT!!! hits as hard as a jump scare.
Fun fact: The two boys are based on my brother and me. He’s the older one and the prankster; I’m the little softie crying after getting picked on. You can spot it in a couple of spreads at the beginning of the book.
My Brother’s Butt Is Haunted came out on July 29, 2025, from Penguin Workshop, followed by a French-Canadian edition from Scholastic. Kirkus wrote that “readers will positively smell the noxious fumes,” which might be the best compliment an illustrator of fart jokes can get.