by Jon Scieszka
Illustrated by Lane Smith
Viking/Penguin Group
New York, 1992
ISBN 0-670-84487-X
Ages 9-12
Wow! This book has broken all the rules, and delightfully so in this spoof of fairy tales by Jon Scieszka. Even the book jacket was not untouched by his unabashed comments to buy his book. The stories start on the end sheet, normally a pristine white, but in this case has a loud mouthed little red hen screaming her story in big red font, versus the smaller black font of the narrator, Jack, who is standing there grimacing with his fingers in his ears. The hen continues to pop in at the middle of other stories throughout the book, and when it looks like we've seen the last of the hen (her feet are sticking out of the giant's mouth at the end), there she is, resurrected on the back of the book cover complaining again-- this time about the ISBN number. How many of us know people like that red hen?
The title page is just that: a big white sheet with the words Title Page printed huge on it and the actual title printed smaller and in parenthesis underneath it. The narrator is holding the dedication page upside down. The introduction page on the opposite side makes a bit of an effort to explain the book. It is supposedly written by the narrator, Jack, of the well-known Jack and Jill poem. It doesn't actually say that, but the clue to his identity is because of the address: Up the Hill, under his handwritten name. But the last paragraph is my favorite-- fussing at us to stop reading the introduction. My son-in-law has this type of brainwave.
That's just the first few pages of the book, and the rest are filled with skewed variations of well-known fairy and folk tales, including Chicken Licken, in which it wasn't the sky that was falling, it was the Table of Contents! The Princess and the Pea is now The Princess and the Bowling Ball; The Ugly Duckling in this book is The Really Ugly Duckling; The Tortoise and the Hare is a play on words with The Tortoise and the Hair, which drives the plot in the new version. Little Red Running Shorts and the Wolf walk off the page, leaving two white silhouettes in their places because Jack the Narrator gives away the story before they get a chance to tell it.
I love the sharp turns and totally unexpected behavior in these stories. It was the like the reading version of riding the Runaway Mine Train at Disney World with all the twists and turns and bumps and thrills in these stories. My daughter is 24 years old, and this is still one of her favorite books.
Lane Smith is right in sync with Scieszka in illustrating these twisted tales. His illustrations look like a child's version of Salvador Dali's surrealism and Picasso's multiple perspectives. Jack the Narrator looks downright scary at times with his little white dots for teeth and wicked expressions. For some of the animals, I had to turn the page this way and that to figure out what they were. The illustrations are hilarious in the story that the book takes its title from: The Stinky Cheese Man. Unlike the situation with a tasty gingerbread man, nobody wanted to chase a stinky round of cheese. And the picture with the cow with her tongue hanging down to the ground and a skunk passed out behind it (that has to be a bad stink) made me laugh out loud.
I really enjoyed this book, and I think many children (and all ages) would, too. That is, except for those who always like their world logical and ordered!