The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales - Jon Scieszka

Wonderfully quirky, this book breathes new life into staid children's stories. In these irreverent variations on well-known themes, the ugly duckling grows up to be an ugly duck, and the princess who kisses the frog wins only a mouthful of amphibian slime. Publishers Weekly 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.) A revisionist storyteller provides his mad, hilarious versions of children's favorite tales in this unique and riotous collection. 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. I mean, what else would you call a story like "Goldilocks and the Three Elephants"? This girl walking through the woods smells Peanut Porridge Cooking. She decides to break into the Elephants' house, eat the porridge, sit in the chairs, and sleep in the beds. But when she gets in the house she can't climb up on Baby Elephant's chair because it's much too big. And she can't climb on Papa Elephant's chair because it's much much too big. So she goes home. The End. And if you don't think that's fairly stupid, you should read "Little Red Riding Shorts" or maybe "The Stinky Cheese Man." In fact, you should definitely go read the stories now, because the rest of this description just kind of goes on and on and doesn't really say anything. I stuck it here so it would fill up the page and make it look like I really knew what I was talking about. So stop now. I mean it. Quit reading this. Open the book. If you read this last sentence, it won't tell you anything. Signed, Jack (Narrator) Up the Hill Fairy Tale Forest 1992 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 SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: It has been determined that these tales are fairly stupid and probably dangerous to your health. Edition MSRP: $17 US (ISBN 0-670-84487-X) The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales is the ultimate in fractured fairy tales. Not only do the characters create their own stories, they also design the structure of the book itself. Classic fairy tales are deconstructed and rewritten with different but recognizable names, such as The Princess and the Bowling Ball, The Really Ugly Duckling, The Tortoise and the Hair and Chicken Licken. These stories and their characters intersect and create a mish-mash of narratives. Scieszka also mocks the conventions of books in general; the title page, dedication, and even the public information page have all been deconstructed. For example, Scieszka sneaks in the line “Anyone caught telling these fairly stupid tales will be visited, in person, by the Stinky Cheese Man” on the publication data page.