It's Okay to Smell Good!

by Jason Tharp

Overview

Jason Tharp’s It's Okay to Smell Good, the follow-up to his hit picture book It’s Okay to Be a Unicorn, introduces the new, hilarious character: Panda Cat, who lives in a world where smelling bad is a good thing!

Panda Cat begins each day by brushing his teeth with garlic toothpaste, combing rotten eggs through his hair, and enjoying a breakfast of spoiled milk and a rotten apple. In Smellville, it’s cool to be stinky.

But when he tries to invent the stinkiest smell ever for the science fair, it backfires—because it smells good. And Panda Cat . . . likes it? How will he tell his friends? Or his hero, Albert Einstink—the scientist behind the theory of stinkativity?

It’s Okay to Smell Good tells kids young and old that you’re free to like what you like, no matter how it smells.

An Imprint Book

Praise for It’s Okay to Smell Good:

“Tharp's good-natured fable is bright and rainbow-y . . . will resonate with any who have felt “other.”” —Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250311337
Publisher:	Imprint
Publication date:	02/02/2021
Pages:	40
Product dimensions:	8.60(w) x 11.10(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	3 - 6 Years

About the Author

Jason Tharp has dreamed of being an author and creating wacky worlds with fun characters since he was a kid. Now as a grown-up kid, Jason is driven to help others embrace the magic of their stories in books like It's Okay to Be a Unicorn! Being an obsessive daydreamer and doodler has led him to create many licensed properties, write books, and design clothing and travel the country talking to kids and adults about embracing their “weirdness” and the power of the unicorn effect. Jason lives in Columbus, Ohio.

Editorial Reviews

2020-11-18
In a world of stink, smelling good might be a problem.

Panda Cat, a skunk, lives in Smellsville, where the stinkiest of the stinky is celebrated as the best. Every morning he combs rotten eggs through his hair, dabs moldy mayonnaise under his arms, and brushes his teeth with garlic-and-onion toothpaste before a breakfast of toe jam, rotten apples, and spoiled milk. One day at Smellsville Smellementary School, his friends (a dung beetle, a stinkbird, and a binturong) tell him that his idol, Smellbert Einstink, discoverer of the theory of stinkativity, will be the guest judge at the science fair. Panda Cat wants to impress his hero with the stinkiest experiment…but in trial runs something goes horribly wrong, and the resultant bright pink goo smells deliciously sweet. Panda Cat finds he likes it, but the smell sends his friends running; he can’t admit his preference. Hoping the experiment will work at the fair, he tries again only to produce more pink fluff. He loses but learns, in an earnest articulation of the book’s message, that Einstink didn’t intend stink to completely displace sweet scents. This effort thematically revisits Tharp’s earlier It’s Okay To Be a Unicorn! (2020), although the like-what-you-like message is somewhat muddled by the silly, excessive references to stench. Worse, the book misses the opportunity to examine subjectivity, instead reinforcing the notion that there are good smells and bad smells instead of just smells. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11-by-17-inch double-page spreads viewed at 29.7% of actual size.)

This book on scent doesn’t make sense. (Picture book. 3-6)

Kirkus Reviews