Stinky Spike books by Paul & Peter Meisel

Our guest blogger today is Susan Kusel, a librarian, children's book buyer and selector at an independent bookstore, and the owner of a children's book consulting company. She has served on the Maryland Blue Crab Young Reader Award committee, the Cybils Easy Readers and Early Chapter Book Awards committee, the 2015 Caldecott Medal selection committee, and she is currently chair of the Sydney Taylor Book Award committee. She blogs at Wizards Wireless.
 

Image from Bloomsbury US Kids

Stinky Spike the Pirate Dog and Stinky Spike and the Royal Rescue are fun additions to the world of beginning readers. By father and son team Paul and Peter Meisel, the books follow the story of a stinky dog named Spike who gets taken in by a group of silly pirates. Spike’s best gift is his nose, which he uses to help the pirates in the first book, and the Princess Petunia in the sequel.

The books are very appealing to kids: Garbage! Dogs! Pirates! Stinky cheese! I would certainly recommend them as library purchases.

The question is, for the purposes of this blog, would I recommend them to the Geisel committee?

That is trickier to answer.

The subject matter is definitely intriguing. The beginning reader I read it with couldn't wait to find out what happened next. The plot kept moving forward and the story developed. The illustrations are clear and reflect what is happening in the story. They also provide visual clues to the text.

All of that meets the Geisel criteria. So, why am I hesitating?

It’s because of the words.

Although these are obviously books for more advanced readers, they fit the Geisel page requirements. The font size and spacing indicate they are books for children learning to read.

Clearly, the words are going to be harder in these books (they are what most publishers would probably categorize as a Level 3 book) than in something more basic like Elephant and Piggie.

Yet, given that, the words are still too hard. Uncommon words such as: pricklefish, methinks, blimey, blundering, etc. are real challenges to kids at this reading level. The sentences are difficult and unclear. A lot of the challenging words are only used once, without repetition to help the reader learn the words.

All of this adds to the charm and flavor of the books, and makes them work for many other reasons, just not in the Geisel context.