2 out of 4 stars
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After reviewing the book written by Len Foley, Four Funny Potatoes, I got a bit enthusiastic and went on to review another book by the same author, Sigfried’s Smelly Socks. But it gave me a completely different feeling compared to the previous book, and it left my thoughts in a complete turmoil. I read it several times, and I even referred some reviews that were written by my fellow reviewers, but still I am a bit confused. Anyway, I will continue with my review.
This book is an assortment of stinky things. It compares various bad odours that are coming from various sources including worn socks. Other than that, there is no story in this to summarize. It is a very small book of 23 pages. It is written for the nursery children. Both the writings and the drawings are done by the author himself.
A constructive criticism should start with good things. So, I will start with good things that I noted in this book.
The book contains more pictures than words, the exact way that the small children prefer. The pictures are colourful and attractive. The book is written in a poetic manner. The children can either read it or sing it. The book is professionally edited and there are no spelling or grammatical errors to be found.
What I do not like about this book is, I do not get the message that the author is trying to give through it. Some might say it is about the importance of hygiene. But according to my view, there are better ways to give such a message to small children. An adult can use this book to make a child understand about hygiene, but that depends on his or her skill of story-telling.
I noticed that the author has written the names of colours using similarly coloured fonts. But he has written the word ‘blue socks’ in red colour. Since I do not see a reasonable cause to do this intentionally, I would like to mark it as a mistake.
Though most of the pictures are okay, I found that some are disgusting. I do not think a small child will tolerate such images.
I would recommend this book to parents who are having small children. They can use this as an aid to teach their children the importance of good hygiene. But I do not recommend this to be read alone by small children.
Considering all the above points, I give this a rating of 2 out of 4 stars. And with this, I think I should stop reviewing children’s books because I think that, I am too old to see these books in the way that they are seen by children.
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Sigfried’s Smelly Socks!
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