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Viking, 1992.
Summary: Several well known fairy tales are retold in a wacky, slapstick manner. Even the table of contents and book jacket are rendered in the same hectic style
Level: 2nd grade - adult
Theme: traditional stories and humor
Activities:
1. Takeoffs and satires are meaningless without prior knowledge of source material. Because some students are not exposed to fairy tales at home, the teacher/librarian should decide how this book might be presented to a class. A) Have it available for individual free reading. B) Use it within a unit of traditional literature during which time younger students would be able to experience the original story prior to hearing The Stinky Cheese Man. C) This book might be used to revisit folktales with older students. Locate copies of the original tales. Make comparison charts to demonstrate the technique and apply the same strategy with fairy tales from a variety of cultures.
2A. Define the artist's style. Find other picture books that have a similar style. Specifically you may wish to find other books by Lane Smith. (Notice the author and illustrator pictures on the fly leaf of this book as well as The True Story of the Three Little Pigs.) Have students imitate Smith's style by building a picture from the background up. Various backgrounds can be replicated using a sponge and thinned paint technique. Notice whether or not the medium used is mentioned in any of the cataloguing information; discuss.
B. Compare and contrast Lane Smith's illustrations with the paintings done by Steve Johnson in another Scieszka book, The Frog Prince Continued.
C. What does the book jacket add to the story? Design a jacket cover that would present a different approach to the story?
D. Read and/or recreate for the class the "interview" with Lane Smith in another Maine Student Book Award Nominee, Talking with Artists.
E. Compare Smith's illustrations to Arnold Lobel's Fables and/or any older edition of Hans Christian Andersen. Cover the following points about the illustrations in all three books: helps clarify the story, represents the mood of the words, adds to the beauty of the book, fills in details for better understanding, and complements the overall atmosphere.
3. Homophones can be fascinating. Scieszka plays with "hair" and "hare." In what other stories could a play on words be used? For ideas see the bibliography on homophones.
4. Ask students to list the tactics that Scieszka and Lane use to entice them to interact with the book? (Students may wish to add this to their writing folders under the heading of "Possible Ideas.") Ask students to build questions around the list of strategies. (For example: Why are page numbers given in the Table of Contents, but pages are not numbered?) Have the students form pairs to answer each other's questions.
5. The front fly-leaf employs an advertising technique using numbers. Determine if they are mathematically correct. Have students bring in real advertisements which use percentages. Share results with the large group.
6A. Jack's Bean Problem, Giant Story, and Jack's Story are related to the Jack and the Beanstalk tale. Justify the author's approach to retelling this tale. How does he connect all three? Why does the print size change? Defend or challenge the ending of the third story.
6B. What part did the little red hen play in the development of the whole book? Can you find any other tales with a similar plot structure that Scieszka could have used?
7. Ask students to determine the "normal" order of parts of a book. Compare and contrast with Stinky Cheese Man. Suggest a reason why the author chose to do the title pages and the table of contents in a non-standard format. Include the fly-leaf, end pages, dedication page, and ISBN bar code on the back cover.
8. Font style may be of interest to some students. What does the CIP say about kind of type used here? Is this the only one used? Ask the class to bring in samples of fonts from typewriters or computers or calligraphy books. Find out what "serifs" and "sans serif" means. Classify the fonts. Make a wall chart showing the fonts, sizes and styles that are available on the computers in your classroom. "Write" a letter or wacky fairy tale using phrases cut from old magazines in the style of "Giant Story" or a ransom letter.
9. Using a HyperCard type computer program, develop an interactive set of at least four tales. (Use the same kind for all four. For example: American Tall Tales, Aesop's or follow a similar motif: enchantment, magic posers, wishes or trickery.) Find some way to encourage "HyperCard jumps" between the tales. Add graphics to match your style of program.
Sample HyperCard Spoof.
See the HyperCard evaluation tool in the appendix.
10. Some people find these stories confusing. Choose the most convoluted tale and rewrite it in a less confusing manner, but still in keeping with the author's style.
11. What is the Caldecott Honor Medal? Who chooses the books for this honor? List on chart paper the criteria for judging excellent illustrations. Examine at least 25 picture books published in 1992. Would you have given The Stinky Cheese Man a medal? Why or why not?
12A. Set up a debate between someone who likes traditional tales and someone who likes Scieszka's approach. In the debate cover various characteristics found in most tales, including plot structure, style, theme, and motif. Present the debate orally or in written form.
B. Traditional tales are no strangers to violence. With older students, list on the board some examples from fairy tales that might be considered violent. (Students may need to find the original stories; for example, the fate of the wicked step-mother in Snow White varies from version to version.) Discuss the part justice plays here. List the violent episodes in The Stinky Cheese Man. Is it gratuitous or does justice come into play? Does mercy have a part?
13. Hold a "game show" based on The Stinky Cheese Man. Ask teams of students to construct their own wacky questions. Distribute the list the day before so that students can prepare related but wacky answers. Examples may include:
- Why didn't the fox smell the stinky cheese until he had reached the middle of the river?
- If you kissed a frog, would you have frog slime on your lips?
- What happened to the story "The Boy Who Cried 'Cow Patty'"?
14. Scieszka connected Cinderella and Rumplestiltskin. Both stories include a girl wanting a change and an agent for the change. What other traditional tales could have common links? Write and produce a play with four tales in a similar style as Scieszka's book.
Resources:
Huck, Charlotte, 1987. Children's Literature in the Elementary School. Holt, Rinehardt and Winston, 1987.
Shelevitz, Uri. Writing with pictures. Watson-Guptill, 1985.
Original "folktales" - humorous
Berenzy, Alix. A Frog Prince. Henry Holt., 1989.
Lobel, Arnold. Fables. HarperCollins, 1980.
Norton, Mary. Are All the Giants Dead? Illus. by Brian Froud. Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1975.
Scieszka, Jon. The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs! Illus. by Lane Smith. Viking Kestrel, 1989.
Van Woerkom, Dorothy. The Queen Who Couldn't Bake Gingerbread. Illus. by Paul Galdone. Knopf, 1975.
Scieszka, Jon. Frog Prince Continued. Paintings by Steve Johnson. Viking, 1991.
Homophones
Hanlon, Emily. How a Horse Grew Hoarse on the Site Where He Sighted a Bare Bear: A Tale of Homonyms. Pictures by Lorna Tomei. Delacorte, 1976.
Hanson, Joan. Homonyms: Hair and Hare and Other Words that Sound the Same. Lerner, 1972.
Terban, Marvin. The Dove Dove: Funny Homograph Riddles. Illus. by Tom Huffman. Clarion, 1988.
Terban, Marvin. Eight Ate: A Feast of Homonym Riddles. Illus. by Giulio Maestro. Clarion, 1982.
Prepared by Nancy Grant, S.A.D. #4 Guilford (with Abigail Garthwait, Asa Adams School, Orono
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