Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Scieszka’s The Stinky Cheese Man: A Tossed Salad of Parodic Re-versions

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Children's Literature in Education Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales (1992) by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith was awarded a Randolph Caldecott Honor Medal in 1993. Scieszka and Smith subvert textual authority through playing “with literary and cultural codes and conventions” (McCallum 1996, p. 400) in their metafictive text. In this article, I discuss the intertextual and parodic nature of The Stinky Cheese Man and explore Grade 5 students’ responses to this postmodern picturebook. Excerpts from students’ written responses and small group peer-led discussions illustrate some of their responses to and interpretations of the re-versions of the tales, the interactive nature of the characters and the obtrusive narrator, and the design of the book.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Allen, G. (2000). Intertextuality. New York: Routledge

    Google Scholar 

  • Anstey, M. (2002). “It’s not all black and white”: Postmodern picture books and new literacies. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 45(6), 444–457

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barthes, R. (1975). The pleasure of the text. London: Jonathan Cape

    Google Scholar 

  • Coles, M., & Hall, C. (2001). Breaking the line: New literacies, postmodernism and the teaching of printed texts. Reading: Literacy and Language, 35(3), 111–114

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cuddon, J. A. (1999). The Penguin dictionary of literary terms and literary theory (4th ed.). New York: Penguin Books

    Google Scholar 

  • Dentith, S. (2000). Parody. New York: Routledge

    Google Scholar 

  • Dresang, E. (1999). Radical change: Books for youth in a digital age. New York: The H. W. Wilson Company

    Google Scholar 

  • Genette, G. (1982). Palimpsestes. Paris: Seuil

    Google Scholar 

  • Genette, G. (1997). Paratexts: Thresholds of interpretation. (J. Lewin, Trans.). New York: Cambridge Press. (Original work published 1987)

  • Goldstone, B. (1998). Ordering the chaos: Teaching metafictive characteristics of children’s books. Journal of Children’s Literature, 24(2), 48–55

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldstone, B. (2001/2002). Whaz up with our books? Changing picture book codes and teaching implications. The Reading Teacher, 55(4), 362–370

    Google Scholar 

  • Holquist, M. (1990). Dialogism: Bakhtin and his world. New York: Routledge

    Google Scholar 

  • Hutcheon, L. (1985). A theory of parody: The teachings of twentieth-century art forms. London: Methuen

    Google Scholar 

  • Iser, W. (1978). The act of reading. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press

  • Keep, C., McLaughlin, T., & Parmar, R. (2002, May 15). Intertextuality. Retrieved May 15, 2002, from http://www.iath.virginia.edu/elab/hfl0278.html

  • Kress, G. (2003). Literacy in the new media age. London: Routledge

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, D. (2001). Reading contemporary picture books: Picturing text. New York: RoutledgeFalmer

    Google Scholar 

  • Lukens, R. (1999). A critical handbook of children’s literature (6th ed.). New York: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marcus, L. (2001). A collaborative effort. Publishers Weekly, 248(29), 84–87

    Google Scholar 

  • McCallum, R. (1996). Metafictions and experimental work. In P. Hunt (Ed.), International companion encyclopedia of children’s literature (pp. 397–409). New York: Routledge

    Google Scholar 

  • McGillis, R. (1996). The nimble reader: Literary theory and children’s literature. New York: Twayne Publishers

    Google Scholar 

  • McGillis, R. (1999). “Ages”: All readers, texts, and intertexts in The Stinky Cheese Man and other fairly stupid tales. In S. Beckett (Ed.), Transcending boundaries: Writing for a dual audience of children and adults (pp. 111–126). New York: Garland Publishing

    Google Scholar 

  • McGillis, R. (2003). Introducing children’s literature: From Romanticism to postmodernism [Review of the book]. The Lion and the Unicorn, 27(3), 431–443

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meek, M. (1988). How texts teach what readers learn. Stroud, Glos: The Thimble Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Nikolajeva, M., & Scott, C. (2001). How picturebooks work. New York: Garland Publishing

    Google Scholar 

  • Pantaleo, S. (2004a). Young children and Radical Change characteristics in picture books. The Reading Teacher, 58(2), 178–187

    Google Scholar 

  • Pantaleo, S. (2004b). The long, long way: Young children explore the fabula and syuzhet of Shortcut. Children’s Literature in Education: An International Quarterly, 35(1), 1–20

  • Pantaleo, S. (2006a). Readers and writers as intertexts: Exploring the intertextualities in student writing. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 29(2), 163–181

    Google Scholar 

  • Pantaleo, S. (2006b). Scieszka’s subversive Little Red Hen: Aka “One annoying chicken.” Manuscript submitted for publication

  • Pantaleo, S. (in press-a). “How could that be?”: Reading Banyai’s Zoom and Re-Zoom. Language Arts

  • Pantaleo, S. (in press-b). Writing texts with Radical Change characteristics. Literacy

  • Pantaleo, S. (in press-c). “Everything comes from seeing things”: Narrative and illustrative play in Black and white. Children’s Literature in Education: An International Quarterly

  • Pantaleo, S. (in press-d). Exploring the metafictive in elementary students’ writing. Changing English

  • Rodari, G. (1996). The grammar of fantasy: An introduction to the art of inventing stories (J. Zipes, Trans.). New York: Teachers & Writers Collaborative

  • Rose, M. (1993). Parody: Ancient, modern and post-modern. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, UK

    Google Scholar 

  • Stephens, J. (1992). Language and ideology in children’s literature. New York: Longman

    Google Scholar 

  • Stephens, J., & McCallum R. (1998). Retelling stories, framing culture: Traditional story and metanarratives in children’s literature. New York: Garland Publishing

    Google Scholar 

  • Stephens, J., & Watson, K. (Eds.). (1994). From picture book to literary theory. Sydney: St. Clair Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Stevenson, D. (1994). “If you read this sentence, it won’t tell you anything”: Postmodernism, self-referentiality, and The Stinky Cheese Man. Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, 19(1), 32–34

    Google Scholar 

  • Tozer, S., & Chou, V. (1997). Playing against conventions: The true story of the Stinky Cheese Man. In J. Flood, S. Heath, & D. Lapp (Eds.), Handbook of research on teaching literacy through the communicative and visual arts (pp. 822–828). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers

    Google Scholar 

  • Trites, R. S. (1994). Manifold narratives: Metafiction and ideology in picture books. Children’s Literature in Education, 25(4), 225–242

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Watson, K. (2004). The postmodern picture book in the secondary classroom. English in Australia, 140, 55–57

    Google Scholar 

  • Waugh, P. (1984). Metafiction: The theory and practice of self-conscious fiction. New York: Methuen

    Google Scholar 

  • Yearwood, S. (2002). Popular postmodernism for young adult readers: Walk Two Moons, Holes and Monster. The ALAN Review, 29(3), 50–53

    Google Scholar 

Children’s Literature References

  • Banyai, I. (1995a). Re-zoom. New York: Puffin Books

    Google Scholar 

  • Banyai, I. (1995b). Zoom. New York: Puffin Books

    Google Scholar 

  • Browne, A. (1997). Willy the dreamer. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Browne, A. (1998). Voices in the park. London: Picture Corgi Books

    Google Scholar 

  • Child, L. (2000). Beware of the storybook wolves. New York: Scholastic

    Google Scholar 

  • Child, L. (2002). Who’s afraid of the big bad book? New York: Hyperion Books for Children

    Google Scholar 

  • Gravett, E. (2005). Wolves. London: Macmillan Children’s Books

    Google Scholar 

  • Lendler, I., & Martin, W. (2005). An undone fairy tale. New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

    Google Scholar 

  • Macaulay, D. (1987). Why the chicken crossed the road. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin

    Google Scholar 

  • Macaulay, D. (1990). Black and white. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin

    Google Scholar 

  • Macaulay, D. (1995). Shortcut. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin

    Google Scholar 

  • Scieszka, J. (1992). The Stinky Cheese Man and other fairly stupid tales. New York: Viking

    Google Scholar 

  • Sis, P. (1996). Starry messenger: Galileo Galilei. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux

    Google Scholar 

  • Wiesner, D. (2001). The three pigs. New York: Clarion Books

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Victoria, Box 3010 STN CSC, Victoria, BC, Canada, V8W 3N4

    Sylvia Pantaleo

Authors
  1. Sylvia Pantaleo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sylvia Pantaleo.

Additional information

Sylvia Pantaleo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction in the Faculty of Education at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in children’s literature and all areas of the language arts.

Appendices

Appendix A: List of Metafictive Devices in The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales

  1. (a)

    obtrusive narrators and/or characters who directly address readers and/or comment on their own narrations

  2. (b)

    multiple narrators or character focalisers

  3. (c)

    manifold or multiple narratives

  4. (d)

    narrative framing devices (e.g., stories within stories)

  5. (e)

    disruptions of traditional time and space relationships in the narrative(s)

  6. (f)

    nonlinear and nonsequential plots including narrative discontinuities

  7. (g)

    intertextuality

  8. (h)

    parodied texts, genres and/or discourses

  9. (i)

    typographic experimentation

  10. (j)

    “mixing of genres, discourse styles, modes of narration and speech representation” (McCallum, 1996, p. 397), including “people prose”

  11. (k)

    “situations where characters and narrators change places, or shift from one plane of being to another” (Stephens & Watson, 1994, p. 44)

  12. (l)

    “a pastiche of illustrative styles” (Anstey, 2002, p. 447)

  13. (m)

    “new and unusual design and layout” (Anstey, 2002, p. 447)

  14. (n)

    illustrative framing, including mise-en-abyme (i.e., “a text—visual or verbal—embedded within another text as its miniature replica” Nikolajeva & Scott, 2001, p. 226)

  15. (o)

    description of the creative process making readers “conscious of the literary and artistic devices used in the story’s creation” (Goldstone, 1998, p. 50)

  16. (p)

    “indeterminacy in written or illustrative text, plot, character or setting” (Anstey, 2002, p. 447)

  17. (q)

    “availability of multiple readings and meanings for a variety of audiences” (Anstey, 2002, p. 447)

Appendix B: List of Radical Change Characteristics Evident in The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales

Type One—Changing Forms and Formats

  1. (a)

    graphics in new forms and formats

    • colour may be used symbolically to communicate meanings

    • the design or placement of words on a page represents sounds or transmits meaning

    • text is superimposed “on a picture appearing simultaneously as both words and picture” (Dresang, 1999, p. 82)

  2. (b)

    words and pictures reaching new levels of synergy

    • words become pictures and pictures become words

    • synergy among varying illustrative styles or types of art

  3. (c)

    nonlinear organization and format

    • disruptions or interruptions in the story or stories

    • not a linear beginning, middle and end

  4. (d)

    nonsequential organization and format

    • one thing does not follow another in chronological, causal, or logical order (i.e. lack of consecutiveness or continuity)

  5. (e)

    multiple layers of meaning

    • verbal layering of story—literary devices of time switches, and stories within stories

    • synergy among multiple stories*

    • visual layering of story

  6. (f)

    interactive formats

    • characters interacting with one another

    • character(s) or narrator interact with reader

    • characters create story in front of reader

    • character(s)/voice(s) comment on story, “creating story around the story” (p. 115)

    • readers must be attentive because of multiple stories and/or disruptions and/or intertextual connections

    • reader interactivity—hypertextual nature of text

    • readers must move back and forth between text and pictures

    • “pattern of reading more than one set of words,” cartoon bubbles (p. 115)

Type Two—Changing Perspectives

  1. (a)

    multiple perspectives, visual and verbal

    • multiple voices in one book

    • multiple language forms used in book

    • new perspective(s) on existing literature*

Type Three—Changing Boundaries

  1. (a)

    unresolved endings

* Radical Change features that I added to Dresang’s list.

Appendix C

Table 1 Picturebooks read by Grade 5 students
Full size table

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Pantaleo, S. Scieszka’s The Stinky Cheese Man: A Tossed Salad of Parodic Re-versions. Child Lit Educ 38, 277–295 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-006-9037-x

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-006-9037-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation