3 out of 4 stars
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Sigfried’s Smelly Socks is an illustrated children’s book which tells of a boy, Sigfried, who tries to uncover the origin of the stench all around him by investigating all possible sources. This leads to the discovery of several disgusting and covert practices which are potential causes of the “stink.” Written and illustrated by Len Foley, whose writing inspiration comes from the similar experiences of two members of his family, the aim of this book is to gross readers out in a humorous way and I can see how it may be appealing to some.
To be honest, I wasn’t exactly sure what to make of the book. Looking at it from the angle of a child, I’d say the author did a pretty good job of capturing the reader’s attention with full-page, realistic and lifelike illustrations. As a matter of fact, they’re a combination of hand drawings and freehand digital images. The font is also very fanciful and eye-catching, different from regular story book style. The author employed the use of rhyming words mostly at the end of one or alternating sentences. All words are arranged in such a way that they are neither lost on the pictures nor do they reduce appeal to the eyes. In addition, I particularly liked the alliteration in the title.
However, from the viewpoint of an adult, I couldn’t help but wonder, “What really is the theme of this book?” “What’s the lesson or take home for the reader?” Personally, I didn’t really find the tale genuinely funny enough to evoke a laugh-out-loud response. I felt like it attempted too hard to force such a reaction from me as a reader. Instead, I ended up with an upturned-nose/rolling-my-eyes facial expression. That may well have been the intention of the author, but it wasn’t my preference.
Then, I had this genius idea to test the book out. I read it to my lower primary class in a very dramatic manner to see what reactions it would generate. Sure enough, almost all the pages got them screaming, “eww,” “yuck,” “ugh,” and made for quite a ridiculously fun (and noisy) class. There were certain strange and tough words like “slobber,” “blubber lumps,” and “kraut” that I had to explain along the line, but all in all, it led to a very interactive session. I tried it with two other classes and got close to the same response. Interestingly, a number of them derived lessons from it as well, at least, on some things that they shouldn’t copy from Sigfried. Bearing in mind that this is a story targeted at an audience range of 3-7 years, I’d heartily say the author downright succeeded, thereby resulting in the softening of my feelings towards the book.
This twenty-six-page book had minimal errors. I noticed the wrong use of a period instead of a question mark on location 5 of 25, Kindle edition. I also think that part of the font style was inconsistent. Being of the opinion that the emboldened words signified the rhymes, I observed that some of the rhyming words were not written in bold like they should be as in the case of ‘head’ and ‘bed’. A completely unrelated word was written in all caps in its place. At a point, the author introduced color to the words. While describing the socks, the colored font for “blue socks” wasn’t blue but purple, in contrast to the other colored words which matched the varying colored socks.
My rating of the book Sigfried Smelly Socks is a 3 out of 4 stars because of these discrepancies. Although they aren’t exactly distracting, I believe that for a children’s book, nothing short of flawless is accepted. The rating may have been less if I hadn’t done that little experiment. Notwithstanding, I recommend it to parents and teachers who want their wards to take a break from serious studying or those who have a ‘gross-out’ sense of humor that matches the one presented in this book.
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Sigfried’s Smelly Socks!
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