The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales take well known and loved classic fairy tales and retells them in parody form. Chicken Little, who cried the sky was falling become Chicken Licken, who is crushed not by the sky but by the table of contents falling on him. The Princess and the Pea is humorously retold as The Princess and the Bowling Ball. A short story in which the King and Queen decide that in order to marry their son, a princess must be able to feel a pea through 100 mattresses. After years of failed attempts, the prince meets the girl of his dreams and sneaks a bowling ball under the mattresses instead. The ugly duckling becomes a really ugly duck instead of a swan; the frog prince is just a frog and the princess who kisses…show more content… Jack the elf narrating the story is caught by a giant who threatens to crush his bones unless Jack tells a better story. And so Jack tells the story of Cinderrumpelstilskin the girl who didn't get to go to the ball, and the story of the stinky cheese man with bacon for a mouth and olives for eyes. Running from his creators, and a cow who didn't want to chase him, the stinky cheese man comes to a river with no bridge and a sly fox. Jumping on the fox back to get across, the fox gags and sneezes at the smell and falling into the river the stinky cheese man falls apart. Sneaking away from the giant, Jack tries to slip away quietly only to have the Little Red Hen begin yelling that no one saved room for her story and questions who will eat the bread she baked. Waking up, the giant eats the bread and the Little Red Chicken as Jack runs off the…show more content… As they grow up, a majority of children are exposed to some form of fairytales. While all stories may not apply to all genders, Jon Scieszka's twist on some of the well-known traditional tales will appeal to both with the sarcasm and smart aleck comments rampant throughout the stories. While I believe that fairy tales have a place in every classroom, there are a few particular reasons I think this book, in particular, would make a great collection addition. First off, one of the things I noticed during my initial reading and research was that the book strays from the traditional format. Commonly following a beginning, middle, and end set up. The Stinky Cheese Man is not a typical structure as the table of contents crushes one of the books characters and characters from different stories make appearances in others with no discernible beginning, middle or conclusive end. The format could be considered confusing to some. However, it offers an excellent example of how books are typically not formatted and could lead to a lesson on the form of a storyline. Second, the illustrations are not only creative and eye-catching but informative as well. While the majority of the book is humorous, one illustration of the frog in the retelling of the frog prince shows a variety of bugs on his tongue with subtext of the proper Latin name for each which I found to be a