Blog Entry #2

I Stink!

Written by Kate & Jim McMullan

Illustrated by Jim McMullan

Joanna Cotler Books, 2002

32 pages

Fiction

           

I chose I Stink! because it was very descriptive, humorous, and colorful. The first book I chose was from the same publisher, and it was a great book too. This book is about a garbage truck with personality, attitude, and cool features. It describes what the garbage truck does at night while people sleep in the big city. This book is also an alphabet book within a fiction story. I thought that was a neat feature of I Stink!

            The artistic media used in this book was drawing using pastels and charcoal pencils. The pastels, or colored chalk, give a rough-looking texture to the illustrations. On every page, there is a balance of cool and warm hues. The illustrator used a lot of black, brown, and grey of different shades. There are also many bright pastels that were used like purple, pink, orange, yellow, and red. The illustrator used almost every color to make, I Stink!, a very fun-looking, colorful book.           

I believe this book would be appropriate for students from preschool to second grade. The reason for that is because this book contains a section with the alphabet within its storyline. Boys would adore this book, and it would be great for any parent or teacher to read aloud. A student in first or second grade would enjoy reading this on their own, and a kindergartner could thumb through to enjoy the pictures and learn the alphabet. I Stink! could be used for a lesson on the alphabet, rhyming, adjectives, or personification to name a few. This book has received the following awards: ALA Booklist Editors’ Choice New Hampshire, Ladybug Picture Book Award, New York Times Notable, New York Times Best Illustrated Book, ALA Notable Children’s Book, and Nevada Young Readers’ Award.