Follow That Stench! Something Stinks by Jonathan Frenske

PEE-YEW! CAN YOU SMELL THAT?

NO? YOU'RE LUCKY! HOW STINKY IS IT?

Even if the stink is worse than rotten tuna, moldy cheese, or a sweaty gym sock which has been moldering in the laundry basket for ages, our courageous, self-sacrificing skunk promises to get to the bottom of this malodorous mystery.

Methodically, he moves from room to room. Aha! He spots something suspicious under the bed.

UNDERPANTS!

But these undies smell springtime fresh!

Still it seems as if a stinky cloud is following him everywhere he goes.

"I DON'T MEAN TO BE RUDE, BUT COULD IT BE YOU?"

Nope! The guest passes the sniff test with flying colors. O-k-a-y! The noxious cloud of stinkiness seems to follow Skunk wherever he goes. He's beginning to feel sick from the offensive odor. He waves the white flag of surrender!

"ACCCCK! FORGET IT! I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!"

"THE STINK WINS! I GUESS WE'LL NEVER KNOW," SAYS SKUNK.

Accompanied by his companion odor connoisseur, a housefly, Skunk, cloud of stink still behind him, exits page right, leaving youngsters with a good case of the giggles, in Jonathan Frenske's latest snicker fest, Something Stinks! (Penguin Workshop/Random House, 2021).

Already the owner of a Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor Medal, for his 2016 A Pig, a Fox, and a Box (Penguin Young Readers, Level 2), author-illustrator Frenske offers this new metafictive title to even the youngest among us, who will appreciate the humor of this character who never guesses that the stench is, as all will guess, right under his nose. And for those with the stomach for stinky storytelling, pair this one with Walter the Farting Dog: Banned from the Beach (See my review here.)

"I Gotta Be ME!" Unstinky by Andy Rash

Bud in a happy-go-lucky little stinkbug ... except for when his pals--P. U. Bottoms, Lord Stinkington, and The Fumigator--get together for ...

A STINKING CONTEST!

Burly P.U. Bottoms is as rank as an odoriforous smokestack. Dapper Lord Stinkington reeks of rotten fish, and The Fumigator funks up the air with eau de doggy doo!

All Bud can come up with is the sweet smell of a vase of flowers.

P.U. puts out the offensive odor of an outhouse. The Fumigator matches him with malodorous gym socks; and Lord Stinkington counters with the stench of sour milk.

All Bud's got is the perfume of a pine tree.

Even when he eats onions, stomps in manure, and gets sprayed by a skunk, the best Bud can come up with is the smell of...

Fresh-baked Bread.

Bud despairs of producing a stink. The top-ranking Major Funk advises special exercises for stimulating stinkiness.

"Stomp your feet! Wave your arms!
Waggle your bottom!"

Poor Bud stomps and waves and waggles all day, but all he produces is the essence of mixed floral bouquet. But his odeur output does attract one admirer, April, a scent-conscious bee, who is attracted by his essence and his dancing. (Bees are big on both, you know!)

And it's a marriage made in aroma heaven, as Bud joins the bees and is happy to jive with the hive, in Andy Rash's stink-o-rama killer-diller read-aloud of a story, Unstinky (Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic Books, 2018). Rash's little stinkbug that couldn't is a handy metaphor for finding where you truly belong in life, and kids will go for the giggles with the succession of comic stink vocabulary and his lovably laughable carton illustrations. Quips Kirkus, "Get a good whiff of this olfactorily original celebration of individuality."