The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales

This collection of fairly stupid stories is truly for everyone. This fairytale spoof appeals to all ages. The Gingerbread Man, Jack and the Beanstalk, Chicken Little, Rumpelstiltskin, The Princess and the Pea, Little Red Riding Hood, The Ugly Duckling, The Tortoise and the Hare, The Little Red Hen.......they're all here, and they're all hilariously lampooned.

This parody style humor also includes off kilter layouts and illustrations.....upside down words, words falling off the pages, alternating font styles, alt imaging, etc. This book is absolute literary anarchy!

This is possibly my all-time favorite picture book. I was first introduced to it when my third grade teacher read parts of it aloud as a treat for the class. I thought it was the greatest thing ever back then. I still do!

The appeal in the book is the reworking of well-known fairy tales and the comic interruptions by other characters. (Seriously, is the hen the funniest thing ever or what?) I think this book is probably one of the greatest influences on my sense of humor, and I can see how my enjoyment of The Stinky Cheese Man has turned into a love for Discworld and John Hodgman.

(My favorite joke ever when I was eight years old was the screaming by the hen on the back cover with regards to the ISBN code. It still makes me laugh, show more seventeen years later!)

Oh, also, because I almost forgot: this book is fantastic as an example of how with picture books, the experience starts with the cover and goes through every page to the back. I could easily see this being used in a university level literary theory course to show how paratextual information can be part of and change a reading.

PS: The illustrations are pretty snazzy, too. show less

In this reimagining of such familiar tales as THE UGLY DUCKLING and CHICKEN LITTLE, the characters are anything but familiar. The story itself falls on chicken little and other characters, the ugly duckling grows up to be...ugly. And the gingerbread man is made of stinky cheese, two olives and an old slice of bacon.
I love this book. It may not be full of lessons and warm fuzzy feelings, but it is FUNNY. Kids love it and cackle with laughter while reading it, and I think there is something to be said for that.

Yeah, the subtitle really says it all: fairly stupid. Not only that, but purposely repulsive visually with its kindergarten collage illustration style and ransom-note, pied-typecase layout and typography, and unbearably twee with all the post-modernist nudging and winking to make sure we get the deconstructionist concept. (Eric Idle has nothing on Scieszka when it comes to "nudge nudge, wink wink.") Left to my own devices, I'd tear out the pages one by one and WRAP THINGS IN THEM. That's all I think it's good for—fish-wrap.

Top 100 Pick because:
A comical new version of classic fairy tales, full of hijinks and frantic characters that crash into each other's stories. The zaniness is apparent from end page to end page, with different fonts of every page, varying sizes, placement, and rhythms. The illustrations perfectly reflect the unique ridiculousness of the narrative. I love reading about fairy tales for different ages and versions. This version was so unexpected when I read it, having never done so as a child. I wish I had. Delightful and hopefully my sister will let me read it to my niece and nephew.

This collection of stories is a spin-off of several classic fairytales. Those fairytales include The Stinky Cheese Man, a "smelly" rendition of The Gingerbread Man, Chicken Licken, a "smashing" tale about Chicken Little, and The Princess and the Bowling Ball, a very "lumpy" representation of The Princess and the Pea. With Jack (from Jack and the Beanstalk) as the narrator, trying desperately not to awaken the sleeping giant, thses stories become quite interesting!

I love authors with a sense of humor, and this book is hilarious! This assortment of tales is a perfect combination of funny and downright twisted. I enjoyed these because they aren't what is to be expected, and it's nice to have that every once in a while.

One extension I'd do show more with my students is to have them fabricate their own renditions of fairytales they remember being read to them. They can illustrate their stories, and we could create our own "fairly stupid tales" book for the classroom library. A second extension could be to break my students up into groups and have them perform one of their renditions to the classroom. We could videotape and play them for their parents at open house! show less

I'm a huge fan of Jon Scieszka's alternative fairytale retellings, but this collection fell a bit flat. The stories are still filled with his signature humour and the artwork is expectedly alt, but the stories themselves aren't particularly strong. Scieszka tackles a multitude of well known stories in this collection, but I think it is this lack of focus that weakens the book overall. Usually he is able to get into the character who the story is based around, but with the shorter space given to each story here he is instead relying on the brevity of the stories and pithy punchlines to sell the story. The only story that I feel like works really well is that of Jack and the giant from the beanstalk because he gives enough space to the show more story for us to see the two charqacters clearly and to engage in some interesting artistic tenchiques as well. Even though the book would have been much shorter, I think it would have been stronger if we had just been given a clever retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk! show less