The Schmutzy Family
Stories filled with muck and mess are fun for young preschoolers, and in this title they will enjoy the smelly, yucky games celebrated on each wild double-page spread, especially since—surprise!—the grown-ups join in the fun. After wading in the swamp on Sunday, the six Schmutzy kids bring lots of mud home with them. The next day, they make mud pies, and the illustrations show them slopping around in the kitchen. On the following days, they bring a bucket of earthworms inside, paint pictures on the wallpaper, and make the sink a natural habitat for frogs and lizards. Then on Friday, Mama insists that they clean up for Shabbat, and the pictures are just as entertaining as they show the family getting “unstunk” and “unswamped,” freeing the earthworms and frogs, and walking to synagogue. Then on Sunday, they pass a huge mud puddle—and Mama does a cannonball. With ink, watercolor, acrylic, and pencil, Meisel’s pictures extend the rumpus, and kids will have fun with the text’s occasional Yiddish words (explained in a glossary), especially farshtunken (stinky). Preschool-Grade 2. --Hazel Rochman