Smelly Skunks! May Not Be Educational, But It Sure Is Fun!

A short while ago, I saw a ludicrous video on Saturday Night Live entitled Sloths! Made, in the context of the skit, by several students who, to quote the matter-of-fact farmer on the cranberry juice commercial, have obviously been "hittin' the DVDs pretty hard," it features sloths engaged in a variety of high-octane activities, prompting the bewildered zookeeper viewing the film to note that it was not quite accurate.

I had this Digital Short in my mind when I picked up Skunks!. I expected that it would probably turn out to be a mostly sedate educational book about these much-maligned creatures. As it turns out, there is nothing educational about this over-the-top picture book. It is every bit as inaccurate as Sloths! But that's okay.

Author David T. Greenberg fills the book with wacky verse that stretches rhymes in silly ways ("family" and "pajamily," "undies" and "sundies"). He also uses the end-rhyme "unk" as much as possible, particularly in the beginning of the book: "The stankiest stink to stunk / Far worse than a moldy garbage can / When you reach down and scoop out the gunk / A million times worse than octopus armpits / Or sniffing an elephant trunk / Is the galling, appalling, truly enthralling / Glorious stink of a skunk!" Ewwwwwwwwwww...

Greenberg gives us a young rascal who thinks up ingeniously devious ways to put his pet skunk to use, from replacing the salad dressing with his spray or using him as a super soaker. The scenarios get more bizarre as the book goes on, culminating in an attack by Skunkzilla and Skunk Kong, who are just as huge and vicious as they sound.

These absurd situations are hilariously illustrated by Lynn Munsinger in a delightful and often disgusting colorfully cartoonish style. We see the smiling red-head sporting a skunk hat, sleeping blissfully on a bed of skunks and imagining a Christmas Eve ride with eight antlered skunks. Those with delicate sensibilities will probably want to avoid this book, which seems to be aimed primarily at boys in the 7 to 10 range. It's wildly imaginative and odiferous; thank goodness these aren't scratch and sniff pages!