The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales

by Jon Scieszka, Lane Smith (Illustrator)

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

If the title got a laugh out of you, rest assured, the book is even better. It’s classic fairytales with ridiculous twists to make for a laugh out loud reading experience for the whole family.

A Caledecott Honor Book
A New York Times Best Illustrated Book

This award-winning picture book is a wild, irreverent collection of reimagined fairy tales from the author and illustrator of The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs!. Makes for an extremely fun and funny read-aloud for the whole family.

A long time ago, people used to tell magical stories of wonder and enchantment. Those stories were called Fairy Tales. Those stories are not in this book. The stories in this book are Fairly Stupid Tales.

In this fourth wall-breaking picture book, young readers will delight in the strange twists on familiar tales. From “The Stinky Cheese Man” to “Cinderummpelstiltskin” these unique, hilarious retellings poke fun at classic stories and characters. The wonderfully offbeat and bizarre illustrations, as well as innovative play with typography and book design, make for a one-of-kind masterpiece from two powerhouse children’s book creators.

Story List:
· Chicken Licken
· The Princess and the Bowling Ball
· The Really Ugly Duckling
· The Other Frog Prince
· Little Red Running Shorts
· Jack's Bean Problem (including Giant Story / Jack's Story)
· Cinderummpelstiltskin (Or The Girl Who Really Blew It)
· The Tortoise and the Hair
· The Stinky Cheese Man

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780670844876
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	10/01/1992
Pages:	56
Sales rank:	17,307
Product dimensions:	8.70(w) x 10.70(h) x 0.50(d)
Lexile:	520L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Multiple award-winning author Jon Scieszka grew up in Flint, Michigan, the second oldest and the nicest of six boys. Jon went to school at Culver Military Academy in Indiana where he was a Lieutenant; Albion College in Michigan where he studied to be a doctor; and Columbia University in New York, where he received an M.F.A. in fiction. He taught elementary school in New York for ten years in a variety of positions. He is the author of many books for children including the New York Times Best Illustrated Book The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales (illustrated by Lane Smith), the Caldecott Honor book The True Story of the Three Little Pigs (illustrated by Lane Smith), and Math Curse (illustrated by Lane Smith).  In addition to his work as an author, Jon also runs a web-based literacy program called “Guys Read” that is designed to encourage boys, particularly reluctant readers, to get involved with books. In 2008, Jon was named the country’s first National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, a joint effort of the Library of Congress and the Children’s Book Council. During his two-year role as Ambassador, he acted as a spokesperson for children’s literature, speaking to groups of parents, teachers, and children to encourage the importance of reading. You can visit Jon online at www.jsworldwide.com.

Editorial Reviews

* A Caldecott Honor Book
* An ABBY Honor Book
* Publishers Weekly Top Selling Kids Books of All Time List
* ALA Notable Children's Book
* New York Times Notable Book of the Year
* School Library Journal Best Books of the Year
* Booklist Editor's Choice

"The entire book, with its unconventional page arrangement and eclectic, frenetic mix of text and pictures, is a spoof on the art of book design and the art of the fairy tale." —Horn Book

"Irrepressibly zany and fun." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

From the Publisher

The Barnes & Noble Review
Get out the nose plugs, folks, and stuff up your nostrils -- the Stinky Cheese Man is back after ten years! Yep, it's been a decade since that zany duo of Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith created the odious little guy who ended up winning our hearts and garnering a Caldecott Honor, and now he's returned in this snazzy, newly jacketed ten-year anniversary edition.

Looking better than ever, the The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales includes all the fractured fairy tales we love, along with some never-before-seen extras. Among Scieszka's lively stories are "The Really Ugly Duckling," "Cinderumpelstiltskin," and, of course "The Stinky Cheese Man." The tales are still fresh and hysterical, with lots of tongue-in-cheek text adding to the book's forward-thinking design. Smith's kooky artwork remains the perfect complement, too, as deep colors and exaggerated features give the book that extra twisted look. The new jacket, though, is the real bonus for this edition -- the inside reveals "The Boy Who Cried Cow Patty," which was mentioned in the first book but then lost, along with all the numbers that fell off the table of contents. In addition to the Stinky Cheese Man's big, smelly mug on the cover, the Little Red Hen is still busy ranting and clucking about her wheat.

Ten years ago, this had all the bells and whistles of a groundbreaking book, and now there's even more. Children and adults still cheer over Scieszka and Smith's unique take on fairy tales, and with this new edition, old fans and new readers alike can chortle over wacky favorites and steaming cow-patty tales. Great for reading aloud or role playing, this anniversary edition reeks of a fun time. (Matt Warner)

bn.com review

Ten wildly hilarious mixed-up fairy tales with wacky illustrations are gathered in this zany book. Not only are they silly ("Cinderumpelstiltskin," "Little Red Running Shorts," and "The Princess and the Bowling Ball" among them), but the variety of type-faces and layout add to the general mayhem. It is a challenge for readers of all ages to keep a straight face while reading this irreverent collection, and "The Gingerbread Man" will never be the same!

Barnes & Noble Staff

Grade-school irreverence abounds in this compendium of (extremely brief) fractured fairy tales, which might well be subtitled ``All Things Gross and Giddy.'' With a relentless application of the sarcasm that tickled readers of The True Story of the Three Little Pigs , Scieszka and Smith skewer a host of juvenile favorites: Little Red Running Shorts beats the wolf to grandmother's house; the Really Ugly Duckling matures into a Really Ugly Duck; Cinderumpelstiltskin is ``a girl who really blew it.'' Text and art work together for maximum comic impact--varying styles and sizes of type add to the illustrations' chaos, as when Chicken Licken discovers that the Table of Contents, and not the sky, is falling. Smith's art, in fact, expands upon his previous waggery to include increased interplay between characters, and even more of his intricate detail work. The collaborators' hijinks are evident in every aspect of the book, from endpapers to copyright notice. However, the zaniness and deadpan delivery that have distinguished their previous work may strike some as overdone here. This book's tone is often frenzied; its rather specialized humor, delivered with the rapid-fire pacing of a string of one-liners, at times seems almost mean-spirited. Ages 5-up. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gr 2-6-- Scieszka and Smith, the daring duo responsible for revealing The True Story of the Three Little Pigs (Viking, 1989), return here with nine new exposes, all narrated by the ubiquitous Jack (of Beanstalk fame). Unlike the detailed retelling of the pigs' tale, most of these stories are shortened, one-joke versions that often trade their traditional morals for hilarity. ``The Stinky Cheese Man'' is an odoriferous cousin to the gingerbread boy; when he runs away, nobody wants to run after him. ``The Other Frog Prince'' wheedles a kiss only to reveal that he is just a tricky frog (as the princess wipes the frog slime off her lips); the Little Red Hen wanders frantically in and out of the book squawking about her wheat, her bread, her story, until she is finally (and permanently) squelched by Jack's giant. The broad satire extends even to book design, with a blurb that proclaims ``NEW! IMPROVED! FUNNY! GOOD! BUY! NOW!'' and a skewed table of contents crashing down on Chicken Licken and company several pages after they proclaim that the sky is falling. The illustrations are similar in style and mood to those in the earlier book, with the addition of more abstraction plus collage in some areas. The typeface, text size, and placement varies to become a vital part of the illustrations for some of the tales. Clearly, it is necessary to be familiar with the original folktales to understand the humor of these versions. Those in the know will laugh out loud. --Susan L. Rogers, Chestnut Hill Academy, PA

School Library Journal

[FOCUS] Gr. 2 and up. Whatever Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith coproduce usually spells a raucous time for everyone (see interview on opposite page), and this book's no different. It's a continuation of the fairy tale fracturing the pair undertook in "The True Story of the Three Little Pigs" , going that story nine better. Here are "10 complete stories!" and "25 lavish paintings!" that purposefully wreak havoc with such familiar nursery tales as "Little Red Riding Hood," "The Princess and the Pea," and "Jack and the Beanstalk." The picture-book set will probably recognize the stories enough to know that what's going on isn't what's "supposed" to happen. But "The Stinky Cheese Man" isn't a book for little ones. It will take older children (that's teens along with 10s) to follow the disordered story lines and appreciate the narrative's dry wit, wordplay, and wacky, sophomoric jokes. There's more than a touch of black humor, too--Jack's giant eats the Little Red Hen as the book closes, and the Ugly Duckling never turns into a gorgeous swan. Smith's New Wave art is an intricate part of the whole, extending as well as reinforcing the narrative; the pictures are every bit as comically insolent and deliberately clever as the words, with Smith's dark palette giving them a moody feeling. An illustration sure to elicit school-yard belly laughs pictures the book's title character (whose head is an odiferous wheel of cheese) causing flowers to wilt, skunks to faint, and children to run screaming for home. But the high jinks go beyond plot and picture. Scieszka and Smith also play around with book design: type sizes vary from minute to majestic; one page is totally blank (this greatly upsets the Little Red Hen), while several others are filled with yellow "smell" squiggles. And there are other little "surprises," some of which seem aimed more at adults than at kids: not often, for example, will you find such a rhetorical question as "Who is this ISBN guy?" or discover that book illustrations have been done in "oil and vinegar." Every part of the book bears the loving, goofy stamp of its creators, and while their humor won't appeal to everyone, their endeavors will still attract a hefty following of readers--from 9 to 99. For fractured fairy tales of a different kind, see Brooke's "Untold Tales" in this issue.

Stephanie Zvirin