Acclaimed author-illustrator Don Brown takes readers on a journey through history and around the world, from Greek, Roman, and Aztec aqueducts and the dawn of bathing (including social public bathing in Japan and religious bathing ceremonies in Machu Picchu) to the invention of soap in the Middle East, the first use of flush toilets approximately 4,000 years ago, and the first toilets used in outer space-a Big Idea when you consider that early astronauts on Apollo 11 had none! Full of facts and colourful historical figures, Brown chronicles both historical mishaps-like rivers full of human waste and King Henry VI's notorious basement of poop-and monumental scientific breakthroughs including Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch's discovery of the link between microbes (germs) and disease. Brown also highlights how social classes became divided not only by wealth and culture but also by smell, and calls attention to modern-day health crises. Today, nearly two billion people around the world live without clean water and about 3.6 billion people-nearly half of the world's population-live without proper sanitation. Breaking down concepts in an accessible, kid-friendly way, this nonfiction graphic novel shows why "keeping it clean" is vitally important whether it's a city, town, home, or person.