Posted on by TracyC

Baker Smurf’s Sniffy Book

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!

Posted on by TracyC

The 13th Clue

The 13th Clue by Ann Jonas, 1988.

This picture book is almost entirely pictures. The pictures present clues to a treasure hunt and reveal the true story of the book.

The book begins with a diary entry. At first, we don’t know who is writing it, but this person writes about what a bad day it’s been. We know that the person must be a kid because they mention school, and I guessed that it was the person’s birthday because people sang to them at school. But, she thinks that others have forgotten her birthday. The diary entry breaks off when the person notices a light going on in the house when, supposedly, no one else is home.

From this point on, until the very end of the book, the text is presented in the form of clues for our birthday kid (who turns out to be a girl, as shown in shadows and a reflection in water in later illustrations) to follow that lead to the place where her friends are waiting to give her a surprise party. Readers can figure out the clues along with the girl, some of which are easier and more direct than others.

I love puzzle books, and I thought that it was interesting how we don’t even know who the main character of the book is, only finding that out as the book continues. I liked the challenge of figuring out the clues as the book went along, although none of them were particularly difficult. They aren’t written in any kind of code, just kind of hidden in plain sight, most of them using objects that are part of the rest of the scene. Some of the letters of words are jumbled and have to be unscrambled. I’m sure it would seem harder to children.

This is a pretty easy book, but not one that would be suitable to read to children who can’t read themselves. There are no solutions provided to the puzzles, but that’s okay because, first of all, they aren’t very hard, and second, there are no opportunities for the reader to make choices based on the puzzles, so there is nothing for the reader to get wrong. The end of the story is obvious. Most of the fun is just studying the pictures to see the cute ways her friends decided to hide their “secret” messages. The hardest message to spot is the one written in the hillside.

The book is available to borrow for free online through Internet Archive.

Posted on by TracyC

Something Queer at the Birthday Party

SQBirthdaySomething Queer at the Birthday Party by Elizabeth Levy, illustrated by Mordicai Gerstein, 1989.

Jill and some other friends are throwing a surprise birthday party for Gwen. They send out invitations secretly and create a mystery game for Gwen with a series of clues to lead her to the party.  As part of the game, Jill pretends that someone broke into her house and stole a painting of her and her dog, Fletcher.  The clues to the thief lead Gwen into the room where all of their friends are hiding, waiting to surprise her.

Gwen loves their little mystery and the surprise, and the party seems a success. But when it’s time to bring out the cake and open presents, Jill discovers that they are missing from the closet where they were hidden. At first, Gwen thinks that it’s just another mystery game, but Jill tells her that the presents really are missing. Who took the presents, and where are they now?

SQBirthdayPic1Gwen takes her party and all the guests on a hunt across town for her missing presents, but the big clues turn out to be right back where they started, and Fletcher leads them right to what they’re looking for.

The solution to this mystery touches on a problem that children with a birthday near Christmas understand: When your birthday is near a major holiday, people don’t pay as much attention to it or give as many presents.  My grandmother said it was the same with her when she was young, and she was also the eldest child in a large family, so her birthday was never quite what it should have been.  In the story, one of the girls’ friends had this problem, and it was the motive behind this temporary theft.  The culprit didn’t mean to keep the presents forever, they just wanted to pretend that they were all theirs for a little while.  Gwen forgives the culprit and shares the rest of her birthday with this person.

The book is part of the Something Queer Mysteries.