(++++) 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.