The Stinky Cheese Man

I don't really remember reading this book as a child, but I know I must have a least once. If not, I know I've at least heard of it. As the title of the book that this story is found in; "The Stinky Cheese Man and other Fairly Stupid Tales," "The Stinky Cheese Man" is definately a stupid story. This story is really short, and to me doesn't really have much of a plot to it. A little old man and a little old lady make a man out of stinky cheese, with a piece of bacon for a mouth and two olives for eyes. Once he comes out of the oven he escapes. Everyone he encounters as he runs away can't stand his stinky odor, and he yells to each one of them "Run run run as fast as you can. You can't catch me. I'm the Stinky Cheese Man!" As this line kept appearing in the story I recognized it from another fairy tale I'm familiar with: The Gingerbread Man.

I'm really not sure how or what the illustrations contribute to the text/story. The illustrations are quite bazaar. One thing I noticed was that the Stinky Cheese Man appears extremely large on the first couple of pages; but as he encounters the cow, the little girl and the fox, he appears rather small (tinier than them). And then, on the last page when he falls into the river we can only see his eyes and mouth, which make him appear big again. I also noticed as I read this story that the size of the text changed as well. It started big, gradually got a little smaller, gets bigger again, and then is the largest on the very last page. I'm really not sure what the author is trying to convey with the change of the size of the text and with the Stinky Cheese Man, but I'm sure it must signify something.