Satire In Jon Scieska's The Stinky Cheese Man

The Stinky Cheese Man is a book written by Jon Scieska and illustrated by Lane Smith. With the use of used old folktales, they create a book of satire and parody in an attempt to get their audience to laugh. A folktale is a story that has been retold over and over by various tellers who have changed the story to suit the audience. That is just what they have done with this book. They have given another rendition of the well-known folktales that are in the book.

Though a wide range of ages can enjoy the book through Scieska’s story and Smith’s illustrations, the author’s assumed audience is second or third-grade readers. The silliness in the stories content of this book will make the most sense if the young reader knows the original folktale.

The book is not written didactically in content though it is organized in such a way to bring attention to these things in a learning manner. As you flip through the beginning pages of the book, Scieska has added humorous elements to the title page, table of contents, introduction, etc. These are things that a typical young reader would skip over or perhaps not be able to identify. Though, with Jack’s help, we can easily giggle as he helps us identify these things.

The humor is not only in the story and the front matter, but it is also in Smith’s illustrations. The pictures correlate to the stories that they are being told with; however, these dramatized illustrations alone are enough to bring humor to the book. When combined together all of these things set the scene for a great children’s book. I really enjoyed The Stinky Cheese Man. I knew most of the stories in the book as folktales from my childhood. Thus, the new versions were just silly. To elaborate on that, they were actually lame, ridiculous, and fairly stupid. Most of the tales ended without the ending of the story or left out the middle of the story itself. Having known the original (or original to me) version, as the reader myself, I was able to immediately see the humor in the horribly lame and stupid