(++++) SMELLOVISION

Stinky’s Stories: No. 1—The Boy Who Cried Underpants!; No. 2—Jack and the Beanstink. By J.J. & Chris Grabenstein. Art by Alex Patrick. Harper. $6.99.

     There is nothing new about reconsiderations and rethinkings of fairy tales, many of which themselves exist in multiple versions and have been retold and rethought over centuries. And there is nothing new about extending once-serious stories, often intended to teach life lessons in palatable ways, into the realm of humor: Jay Ward’s “Fractured Fairy Tales” are classics of their own kind, and recent Disney forays into reconsidering classic tales from a more-inclusive, politically correct angle are another example (if highly unlikely ever to become “classics” on their own). So the Stinky’s Stories series by J.J. and Chris Grabenstein has a certain amount of underlying heft to it, which it quickly discards so as to make these short paperback books appealing to odor-obsessed six-to-10-year-old readers.

     Yes, the “Stinky” of the series title is a skunk – a stuffed one who lives on the top shelf of the library at Hickleberry Elementary School, where Mr. Stuffington the stuffed bear, Wags the stuffed dog, and Geri the stuffed giraffe live on a lower shelf (at least in the first book: Geri seems to have disappeared in the second). When there are no adults around, the “stuffies” can talk and interact with the kids, and Stinky comes into his own as a tale-teller who expands on famous stories by inserting himself into them and making his odoriferous contributions crucial to the eventual happy endings.

     None of this is on the level of Chris Grabenstein’s remarkable Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library, with which these lightweight tidbits share nothing except a library setting. To the extent that there is any “teachable” element here, it involves librarian Mrs. Emerson telling the kids to use their imagination if they want to continue classic stories beyond their usual endpoints. The kids, however, do not do this: they turn to Stinky, who uses his imagination to take stories on different tracks and totally derail them.

     Each book starts with a sanitized and non-stinky retelling of a classic tale. The first one uses “The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” Aesop’s fable against lying, in which a boy who repeatedly warns of a nonexistent wolf, stirring up the villagers, is not believed when a real wolf shows up – and is devoured. That’s considered unsuitable for kids nowadays, so Mrs. Emerson simply has the allegedly original version of the story end with the villagers explaining to the boy that lying is not nice. Ho hum. Anyway, Stinky gives the boy a name (Bob) and has him decide to leave his small town of Doonferbleck (named for an unappetizing concoction that makes people say “bleck” when they eat it) for the big city, where it turns out that everyone cries “Wolfe” all the time – with a final “e” because Wolfe is the name of the local capitalist, and calling it brings in more business. Bob meets Stinky in the city and explains that he is easily bored (this is why he called “wolf” back home, to enliven things, not that the word “enliven” appears anywhere in a book at this level). Crying “wolf” in the city (or “wolfe,” for that matter) would not do anything interesting, so Bob uses his (limited) imagination and decides to cry “underpants.” This leads to a series of mishaps in which it is very funny to see or imagine seeing underpants that may or may not be stinky – and eventually the queen herself appears, pronouncing herself suitably unamused by all the underpantsness, and eventually the entire city makes a fashion decision to wear one pair of underpants beneath clothing and another pair on top of outerwear because that shows regal respect and not coincidentally doubles sales for Mr. Wolfe. This summation may miss a point or two of the narrative, but kids and adults who are interested can simply follow their noses to the book and sniff around.

     The second book opens with “Jack and the Beanstalk,” which the Hickleberry kids dislike because Jack is a thief and the poor giant falls all the way from the clouds – not dying, as in the original tale, but landing on his rear end in soft mud that was conveniently available thanks to several days of rain. Stinky’s continuation of this story names the giant Hubert and turns him into a really nice guy and a doggone good basketball player (he’s a giant, after all); Jack is the bad, nasty, selfish, rich thief and cheater who eventually gets his comeuppance after the giant is able to go home to his mommy in the clouds thanks to Stinky discovering a way to grow a new beanstalk. There is also a T. rex in the story for no apparent reason (no apparent reason is needed), and famous wizard The Mighty Dazzlemuss makes a late appearance to set things right. And there is plenty of smell-and-toilet humor for those enamored of such things, which presumably includes the target audience of the Stinky’s Stories books. Crudely silly without being actually crude, these are fairy tales that are not so much fractured as they are blown up – meaning expanded and also exploded. Alex Patrick’s illustrations are suitable to the tone and attitude of the books, which means there is one showing Hubert in his basketball uniform sitting unhappily in the forest, unable to figure out how to get home and saying “Boo-hoo-dee-hoodee-hoo-hoo-hoo. Snort.” And that is the most intellectual comment made by any character, author or illustrator in the Stinky’s Stories universe.

(++++) PIANISTIC PERSONALITIES

Rimsky-Korsakov: Piano Concerto; Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2; Alexandre Tsfasman: Jazz Suite. Zlata Chochieva, piano; BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Karl-Heinz Steffens. Naïve. $16.99.

Chopin: Nocturnes, Op. 9, No. 1; Op. 15, No. 2; Op. 27, Nos. 1-2; Op. 62, Nos. 1-2; Debussy: Suite Bergamasque; Preludes—Book I, No. 8; 12 Études—No. 11. Carlos Gardels, piano. MSR Classics. $14.95.

     Pianistic virtuosity is pretty much a given in concerts and on recordings nowadays: there are so many technically adept pianists that it can be hard to choose among them when they play the same works. This opens the door for pianists to become distinctive through repertoire choice rather than technique, and the results can be intriguing, as they are on a new Naïve recording featuring Zlata Chochieva and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Karl-Heinz Steffens. One of the works on this CD is vastly neglected, one is almost completely unknown, and one is comparatively familiar – and even though the three pieces differ substantially in many ways, they turn out to fit together surprisingly well. Rimsky-Korsakov’s short (15-minute), Lisztian Piano Concerto is very much deserving of being heard more frequently. It is hard to understand why this ebullient, very well-scored, highly virtuosic display piece is such a rarity, unless perhaps because of its comparative superficiality and somewhat dated-sounding grand gestures, especially in its central section: it is a single-movement work but divided into sections that are, in effect, separate movements. Chochieva and Steffens attack the concerto for all it is worth, and while its musical merit may be debatable, its entertainment value really is not: it sweeps listeners along skillfully from start to finish, combining its elements derived from Liszt (to whom it is dedicated) with distinctly Russian material – it is built around a single theme that Rimsky-Korsakov took from Balakirev’s 1866 folk-song collection. What the concerto lacks in profundity it more than makes up for in the sheer delight of its structure and pianistic expectations, all of which Chochieva fulfills admirably. It is followed on this disc by the Prokofiev, which the composer famously rewrote in 1923 after the score of the original (written a decade earlier) was destroyed following the Russian Revolution. This makes the rewritten concerto 40 years newer than Rimsky-Korsakov’s; it is also more than twice as long and even more technically challenging. But there is an underlying “Russianness” here that, it turns out, complements the earlier work to a surprising degree. Prokofiev is considerably more intense and serious in this concerto than Rimsky-Korsakov is in his, and the technical challenges are of a different sort – the brief second movement, in particular, is an unusual kind of perpetuum mobile that is quite difficult to bring off successfully, making Chochieva’s handling of it particularly impressive. This is an unrelenting concerto, with its discordant first movement, its third-movement Intermezzo presenting an air of menace, and its nearly manic finale – there is no slow movement and barely any respite for pianist or audience. Chochieva and Steffens are at their best in the aptly labeled concluding Allegro tempestoso, wherein the piano and orchestra have at best an uneasy relationship in a movement of tremendous complexity and sonic range. The Prokofiev is followed here by a very different sort of Soviet-era work, the Jazz Suite by Alexandre Tsfasman (1906-1971). This suite for piano and orchestra dates to about 1945 but harks back in attitude and comparative brevity to Rimsky-Korsakov, although its rhythmic bounce is certainly that of jazz and its harmonies reflective of the 20^th century. A certain level of Impressionism underlies the work, whose four movements are titled Snowflakes, Lyrical Waltz, Polka and Career: Presto. The work is scarcely deep, but it is exceptionally pleasant, a highly suitable contrast to the Prokofiev concerto that precedes it here, and a worthy display piece in its own right. Here Chochieva and Steffens show themselves adept with what is essentially “light music,” turning from the intensity of the Prokofiev and the warm sound of the Rimsky-Korsakov to an altogether more-straightforward example of piano-and-orchestra display that is every bit as satisfying, in its way, as the other pieces on this first-rate CD are in theirs.

     The pianism is equally skillful but the choice of material less interesting on an MSR Classics CD featuring Carlos Gardels. There is nothing the slightest bit “wrong” about a pianist presenting a recital of miscellany composed by Chopin and Debussy – but the works heard here are so well-known, so often played by so many performers in so many contexts, that it is a challenge to have anything new to say about them, musically speaking. Gardels does not: he performs with sensitivity and technical adeptness, and engages more than satisfactorily with the music, but ultimately provides no particular new insight into it. The smattering of Chopin nocturnes is pleasant enough, as is the case for pretty much any set of selections of these warmly crepuscular works; and Gardels handles the music with considerable feeling, with Op. 62, No. 2 being especially heartfelt. There is, however, nothing unique or especially revelatory in his approach, nor any reason for the choice of these specific works to be heard in this specific sequence – except, of course, as a reflection of the pianist’s personal taste. That is justification enough for the material chosen, but it tends to limit the potential audience to listeners whose own preferences parallel those of Gardels. The Debussy material, for all its familiarity, comes across somewhat more successfully, with the more-upbeat portions of Suite Bergamasque being a welcome change from the similar pacing of the foundational beauties of the Chopin miniatures. Clair de lune, however, is a bit of a disappointment, with Gardels giving it a stop-and-start quality that somewhat undermines the mood. The two other Debussy works are, in effect, encores. The prelude (“The Girl with the Flaxen Hair”) is suitably sweet and gentle, while the étude (“Pour les arpèges composes”) is a gently cascading and sensitively played set of arpeggios. Everything is nicely handled on this recording, but it remains a (+++) disc for its somewhat monochromatic choice of material, and because everything Gardels offers is so commonly heard, so familiar, that the CD is mainly worth considering for someone who is just starting a classical-CD collection and does not yet have a recording (or several recordings) of this very-well-known music.

(++++) AS ADEPT AS ALWAYS

The Best 390 Colleges, 2025. By Robert Franek with David Soto, Stephen Koch, Aaron Riccio, Laura Rose, and the staff of The Princeton Review. Princeton Review/Penguin Random House. $26.99.

     Ralph Waldo Emerson is consistently misquoted as having said that “consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” when what he really wrote (in Self-Reliance, in prose that almost scans as poetry) was “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” Consistency of the unfoolish sort can in fact be something quite admirable, and it is this type that is offered year after year by The Princeton Review’s encyclopedic college guides – including the 2025 version, whose college count continues a slightly odd tradition of its own by being one number higher than in the previous year (390 schools profiled for 2025, with 389 for 2024, 388 in the book’s 2023 version, 387 for 2022, 386 in 2021, and 385 for 2020). The price of the 2025 guide remains the same as a year ago, another welcome snippet of consistency and perhaps an indicator of moderating inflationary pressures (although using that as an economic indicator tips over into “foolish consistency” territory).

     The Best 390 Colleges, 2025 is in fact a once-over-not-too-lightly exploration of only 7% or so of the 5,000-plus schools of higher education in the United States, or (as the book itself says) “only the top 13 percent of the approximately 3,000 four-year colleges in the nation.” Of course, as Harvard’s Tom Lehrer pointed out six decades ago, stats are in the mind of the beholder (he actually said “filth…is in the mind of the beholder,” but hey, who’s paying attention?). The relevant point here, in any case, is that despite its heft (some 900 oversize pages), this book is a sampling rather than a comprehensive presentation. It is, however, a very well-organized and well-produced sampling, and the two-page “How We Produce This Book” introduction is as good a place as any to start mining the nuggets of knowledge buried in it.

     There is a lot to dig up here, not because the book is difficult to explore – a great deal of work has gone into making it as easy to use as possible – but because every family’s needs, desires and hopes where college is concerned are so different. By presenting each school in exactly the same way, on two pages with central “Students Say,” “The Princeton Review Says” and “The School Says” sections and marginalia giving data on everything from total and broken-down-by-categories enrollment to financial realities, The Best 390 Colleges, 2025 lets families do side-by-side comparisons to help them evaluate the pluses and minuses of specific schools. As a matter of fact, one of these days it wouldn’t hurt to have a page-perforated version of this book, since each family will be interested in only a handful of these many colleges and one of the best ways to cross-compare them is to tear out the schools’ respective pages so as to be able literally to view them side by side. That gets messy.

     The key to the most-effective use of The Best 390 Colleges, 2025 is to narrow down the list of schools worth considering so as not to be overwhelmed by the sheer heft of the book and the sheer amount of data it contains. The book itself makes this easy for students and families already focused on specific fields of study, thanks to a section called “Great Schools for 21 of the Most Popular Undergraduate Majors” – everything from A (accounting) to P (psychology). There are other lists as well, lots of them: “Best Classroom Experience,” “Most Accessible Professors,” “Friendliest Students,” “Best College Radio Station,” even “Lots of Beer” and “Pot’s Not Hot” (contrasted with “Reefer Madness”). And there are lists focusing on career placement, alumni networks, entrepreneurship, even game design. There is also some very useful back-of-the book information, including an index by location (crucial for families limited to specific geographic regions by choice or necessity), an index by tuition costs (crucial to just about everybody), and a listing, in addition to the titular 390 schools, of 241 regional colleges “that we consider academically outstanding and well worth consideration in your college search” – although anyone interested in these schools will have to reach out to them directly, since details on them are not provided.

     The point for the latest edition of this always-excellent guide is consistent with the point of previous editions: the start of the search for a good match of college to student lies outside the book, with student and family consideration of what factors matter the most for each individual’s specific situation. After a decision is made on the individual factors that are most important, a review of the various lists in The Best 390 Colleges, 2025 makes it possible to narrow down the choosing process to schools meeting the desired criteria – and then, and only then, does it make sense to turn to the pages offering detailed information and commentary on each school. The Best 390 Colleges, 2025 is neither a starting point nor an end point in the college search – it exists on the middle ground between figuring out a focus and actually applying to whatever number of schools students and families decide would be worthwhile. The book, year after year, delivers on its underlying premise with well-designed, easy-to-use layout and presentation and solid, data-driven analysis, and does it all with a consistency that is anything but foolish.

(++++) A STRONG SENSE OF FLOW

Beethoven: The Middle String Quartets—Op. 59, Nos. 1-3; Op. 74; Op. 95. Calidore String Quartet (Jeffrey Myers and Ryan Meehan, violins; Jeremy Barry, viola; Estelle Choi, cello). Signum Classics. $37.99 (3 CDs).

     The release-in-reverse Signum Classics cycle of the Beethoven string quartets by the Calidore String Quartet, which started with the late quartets rather than the early ones, approaches the middle quartets – which are the middle release no matter what order a complete set appears in – with the same mixture of meticulous ensemble playing and convincing (if sometimes unusual) tempo choices that pervaded the players’ handling of the late quartets. Theirs are performances with tremendous attention to nuance and detail, not only in the music itself but also in their technique – for instance, the quartet members not only play with carefully matched vibrato but also avoid vibrato altogether from time to time, also as a group, thus changing the character of the music without altering the notes or tempo in any way.

     Beethoven’s tempo markings for his quartets (and other music) continue to provoke discussion and dissension, the consensus being that they are often simply too fast to allow the music the breadth that seems inherent in it. The Calidore players make an effective argument, purely on a musical basis, that this is not necessarily so. The opening Allegro of Op. 59, No. 1, and the concluding Allegro molto of Op. 59, No. 3, to cite two examples, are played at or close to Beethoven’s metronome indications, and the movements not only work but also show just how revolutionary the “Razumovsky” quartets were in their time. In fact, at this pace and with this precision, the quartets have an impact that makes them, despite their familiarity nowadays, sound new again.

     Nor do the Calidore players always proceed at near-breakneck speed; this is scarcely a monochromatic set of interpretations. The third-movement Allegretto of Op. 59, No. 2, for example, is paced quickly but not overly so, and here the performers emphasize the attractive syncopations to very fine effect. And the Andante con moto quasi allegretto second movement of Op. 59, No. 3, although it moves a bit too quickly for a sense of dreaminess, is effective through its finely honed dynamic contrasts and excellently accented ensemble.

     The slower movements are attentively handled throughout, if perhaps not always quite as convincingly as the speedier ones. The Adagio molto e mesto of Op. 59, No. 1, and Molto adagio of Op. 59, No. 2, are suitably tender but not always emotionally deep, although the emotive first-violin climax in No. 1 glows with intensity that is not always evident earlier in the movement. Interestingly, the Adagio ma non troppo second movement of Op. 74 (“Harp”) seems a bit too slow to sustain well, but it does, thanks to highly lyrical playing that does not overstep into too-Romantic excess. In the notoriously difficult-to-fathom Op. 95 (“Serioso”), the outer movements are outstanding, packed with intense drive while still possessing occasional flickers of soon-extinguished cantabile material – this performance fully highlights the emotional as well as technical complexity of the work. The middle movements are not quite as convincing: the peculiarly marked third movement, Allegro assai vivace, ma serioso, is actually a bit on the slow side, rendering its mixture of forms (a kind of march/dance) less apparent. But it is important to note here, as in the Calidore’s recording of the late quartets, that every single nitpick of these versions is a nitpick: there is precious little here that does not work on its own terms, and in fact the players’ sit-up-and-take-notice approach again and again sheds new light on the music and justifies their handling of it even when what they do is a bit outside the performance mainstream. As in their recording of the late quartets, the sheer technical prowess of the Calidore String Quartet is everywhere on display here, their interpretative abilities shine through again and again, and the commitment and excellence of ensemble that pervade this release place it among the very best recordings of this repertoire available today.

(+++) THE ROAD TO PURPOSE

Let’s Change the World: How to Work within International Development Organizations to Make a Difference. By Emiliana Vegas, Ed.D. Rowman & Littlefield. $28.

     The drive to make things better, to improve the planet we all share, may be no more urgent today than in the past – but in our technology-driven world, it certainly seems more urgent, as we are exposed to so much more detail about everything that is bad or wrong, everything that falls short of some sort of ideal (with the various ideals often being culturally determined – an issue in itself). In the past, the urge to improve things tended to be locally focused, if only because knowledge of distant places was less and speed of communication much less than is the case today. Now, though, young people have instant access to just about anywhere, and to information regarding just about anything, and they can and do focus on events everywhere in the world – with greater understanding than young people had in the past of just how interconnected disparate countries, cultures and concerns really are.

     How to navigate this? Harvard professor Emiliana Vegas, whose own improve-the-world credentials come from her work at the World Bank, Inter-American Bank and Brookings Institution, gives her personal answer in Let’s Change the World, a book aimed at “talented individuals who want to improve the lives of the most vulnerable populations in the poorest parts of the world.” The formulation says nothing about being an “influencer,” nothing about TikTok and Snapchat videos, and, tellingly, nothing about insisting on an ideal of work-life balance – although Vegas does have something to say on that topic: “As a rule of thumb, when a specific job brings me a sense of purpose and excitement (and thus satisfaction) for at least 70 percent of the time, I stay. Once that share falls, it is time to move on.” Young readers can take this to heart – but as an ideal, not an automatic occurrence or must-have.

     The field of international development organizations – however defined – is, after all, vast. Vegas’ book opens, even before the Introduction, with four single-spaced pages of acronyms and abbreviations, a veritable alphabet soup of assistance. Readers looking for another point of entry to the topic can simply visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_development_aid_agencies to get an idea of how big this field is, how many component parts it has, and how complex it can be to navigate one’s way through it.

     First, though, one must navigate one’s way into it, and that is actually where Vegas’ book is most helpful. After listing what she regards as the five types of international development organizations (IDOs), Vegas explains what would-be world changers will need in order to become a member. Education, education, education is the basis, she says, including, in college, taking “as many social science courses as you are able, for example, economics, public policy analysis, and sociology.” Then add math, statistics, data analysis and econometrics “so that you may qualify for entry-level research assistant positions or consulting jobs within IDOs.” And be sure to become fluent in a second or third language.

     If this sounds like a daunting prospect, IDO-based world changing may not be a good fit: even graduate students, she writes, must take “courses that are challenging” as they focus on “investing in a professional network that you can later tap into during the course of your career.” Indeed, networking is an absolutely crucial requirement: Vegas says she “can’t emphasize this latter point enough.” Furthermore, if you are not of college age and just starting on the road to IDOs but are mid-career and hoping to switch to a field you believe will be more satisfying, you must “be prepared to accept a lower position to begin with.” None of this is easy, or intended to be. A few social-media postings here and there will not get you from here to there.

     How did Vegas herself manage her own career progress? She explains some of the basics in chapters called “Standing Out from the Crowd” and “The Paths Worth Taking,” emphasizing (indeed, italicizing) the necessities of technical skills and the ability to work effectively with diverse people and the capacity to deliver quality products that comply with the allocated budgets and timelines. Yet again: anyone without sufficient drive, determination and intensity need not pursue this approach to world-changing.

     Having set the scene for readers who want to work within IDOs, Vegas moves on to book sections called “How You Thrive” and “How to Make a Real Difference,” using herself as an example and getting significantly more deeply into everyday operational issues involving IDOs. This means the book becomes increasingly acronym-heavy: a single, typical two-page spread includes IDO, IDB, ESW, LMICs, WB, SIEF, CN, and RCT. It also means that many of the recommendations and suggestions would apply to ongoing career work in any business environment: “Moving Up the Corporate Ladder” (one chapter title) is scarcely an IDO-only topic. And the illustrative material Vegas offers may be more than a little overwhelming, as when she creates a full-page table called “How Various Technical and Managerial Positions (Using HD and Education as Examples) Fit within the WB’s Matrix.” Similarly, her commentaries on toxic supervisors and “The Power of a People Person” (another chapter title) are applicable to many, many workplaces.

     Vegas is scarcely naïve about the field of IDOs, saying that she knows there are people in IDOs who really care about their organizations’ missions and the people that the IDOs are supposed to help, even though “these institutions can be riddled with limitations and inefficiencies” and “sometimes their staff are more interested in pursuing individual agendas than the institutional mission.” So her enthusiasm about her chosen career is tempered by a sense of reality. And although Vegas is in her 50s, she clearly believes that Let’s Change the World will reach out effectively to readers 30+ years younger: “I hope this book will encourage those interested in pursuing careers in development to really go for it,” she writes with emphasis. What she does not do, likely because she is too close to her field to have the sort of overview that young readers will bring to it, is to explain in detail exactly how her personal work – and, by implication, theirs – would “make a difference.” Vegas’ contributions to what she considers world-changing are in the form of books such as Incentives to Improve Teaching: Lessons from Latin America and articles such as School choice, stratification, and information on school performance: Lessons from Chile, and When education expenditure matters: An empirical analysis of recent international data. Will fired-up college students see the creation of material such as this as sufficiently world-changing to make them willing to dedicate the time and effort required to break into IDOs and rise through the groups’ ranks? Will those who want things to be improved immediately, if not sooner, find Vegas’ recommendations a satisfactory road map for their personal and professional lives? Perhaps – or perhaps Vegas’ book will serve to show even the most-well-meaning readers that when one talks about changing the world, one is really talking about changing a very small piece of it over a very long time period while working one’s way through a very large number of difficulties and obstacles. Those unwilling to accept that reality, those hoping instantly to Photoshop wide-ranging, lasting improvements while proclaiming themselves “influencers,” will take scarcely any useful lessons, much less world-changing ones, from Let’s Change the World.