3 out of 4 stars
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“Sigfried’s Smelly Socks!” The alliterative use of “s” in the title definitely tickled my ears. However, I should have guessed it was the sense of smell that was to be explored in the pages to come. Written and illustrated by Len Foley, Sigfried’s Smelly Socks! invites kids and perhaps their pet dogs to sniff around and find the cause of the terrible smell Sigfried, the young narrator, insists the book stinks of.
The title does give a possibility of what could be causing the awful stench. Despite this, wide-eyed Sigfried, keeping his hand as far away as he can from his blue shirt, asks readers to “go on and take a whiff” and guess what this could be. As mum, dad or teacher reads aloud, I picture kids wriggling their noses and yelling the varied answers their imagination conjures. Some of them are sure to remember the socks from the title and suggest them as the culprit. However, Sigfried provides many likely suspects. From pungent “pee” to not so bad “peanut butter and jelly chunks”, “rotten banana” to “squish-mushed chewing gum”, kids and their noses cannot rest until the offender is caught. Thus, Sigfried, with his hand still stretched out as if in disownment, takes kids on an investigative journey of different smells. The end of the search may leave some kids with the smug feeling they were right along but not without a surprise.
Sigfried leads the investigation in verse: couplets, tercets and quatrains. With varying rhyme schemes, the tempo of the search is maintained at a high. For emphasis, Foley puts some of Sigfried’s words in font bigger than others. This way, kids know Sigfried really means his disgust at his baby sister’s diaper by the manner in which the words are written. Foley, using punctuation, gives the impression that Sigfried is the kind of child who is reminded to use his indoor voice often. His sentences are sprinkled with exclamation marks and question marks. More than let readers in on his personality, this makes Sigfried’s Smelly Socks! an interactive read.
Foley could have simply told kids about the unpleasant things causing the pages of the book to smell, but thankfully chose to display them in a colourful fashion. There are colour-pencil sketches of Sigfried, his baby sister and his uncle, and life-size pictures of the rotten banana, peanut butter and jelly, baked beans, ketchup and pizza. Why, there is even a microscopic image of a smelly spot whose form Sigfried cannot perceive – my personal favourite. The colour-pencil sketches, though basic, portray the characters’ emotions. The horrified look on Sigfried’s face when he shows kids the smell “that burns the hairs on [his] head”, for instance, could not have been better drawn. That image is made even more attractive by Foley’s break from tradition. Imagine colour-pencil-sketched Sigfried with that look and with his hand still held away from his body, in the surroundings of a real life children’s bedroom, with a teddy bear and Lego strewn on the carpet. Foley, masterfully blends these two different types of images in the beautiful almost-middle page. The colour is not left only to the pictures in the book but also to some of its words. When Sigfried introduces kids to his orange, green and red pairs of socks, they see them written in the colour of their names. There is however a missed opportunity for kids to learn and identify the colour blue when they encounter his “blue socks”, sadly written in pink.
Sigfried’s Smelly Socks! is hands down an interactive and colourful book suitable for children aged four to seven. However, aside from teaching kids about the causes of unpleasant smells and encouraging them to explore the sense of smell, I struggle at finding a moral lesson they could learn. I say this especially in light of the note on which the story ends. For this important reason, I rate the story, 3 out of 4 stars. Perhaps, it is simply a story that reeks of light-hearted fun and gross humour, however, I am certain parents and teachers would appreciate it even more if there were a lesson to be impressed upon kids. The author could consider writing a sequel or giving kids a "Sigfried Series" where moral lessons can be fully developed. Undoubtedly, kids will be all ears to another Sigfried encounter!
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Sigfried’s Smelly Socks!
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