Baker Smurf’s Sniffy Book by Peyo, 1982.

“Sniffy” books with scent patches for readers to scratch and sniff were a recent innovation in the 1980s and were popular with kids. Many books that included this feature used well-known characters from popular children’s cartoons, like this one featuring the Smurfs.

The Smurfs are making special treats as part of a surprise party for Papa Smurf’s birthday! The first scent in the book is the soap the Smurfs use as they wash their hands and prepare to help.

All of the rest of the scents in the book are ingredients they use to make the birthday treats. There is the jam that they put in the jelly rolls, the peach they put into the peach-flavored birthday cake, violets that they make into candied violets (not common in the US, but they can be used as decorations on desserts in real life), gingerbread that they make into gingerbread Smurfs, and lemonade.

When everything is ready, they surprise Papa Smurf with their fun birthday feast!

My Reaction

We’ve had this book since I was a little kid. Sniffy books gradually lose their scents the more the patches are scratched, but we used this one pretty frequently, and the scents have held up surprisingly well. You can see the scratch marks on the scent patches in the pictures, and the scents aren’t as strong as they used to be, but even more than 30 years later, the scents are still there and recognizable as what they’re supposed to be. The one that held up the least well is the lemonade scent, but the others are pretty good for being as old as they are!