Book Review: The Adventures of Scratch Sniff and Mr Smith

Thursday 4 March 2010 is world book day and a new book out this week in the Early Learning Centre has been designed to kick up a stink.

The Smelly Book Company have just released three brand new books for children aged three to six years to really get their nose stuck into.

Through brightly illustrated stories, the book introduces characters and objects that children can actually smell.

In Mr Smith Builds a Robot,  we are introduced to the characters of Mr Smith, Scratch the cat and Sniff the robot.

Mr Smith is a clever inventor who roots through his recycling box to find parts to build a robot for his cat’s birthday.

The illustrations will move three-year-olds away from the gentle pre-school book world of cuddly bears and rabbits, engaging them through their sense of smell and vision into a more progressive, inventive environment.

Cleverly, preschoolers will start learning to sense the world around them using their nose and begin to identify these smells.

Our three-year-old book reviewer Jacob, enjoyed hunting through the book with his nose to sniff out scents.

He said it was ‘good’ and ‘stinky’ and he had obvious fun locating which pictures smelt and which didn’t.

At three-years of age, Jacob preferred at this stage to simply talk about the pictures and the smells, rather than listen to the story.

The series of books have been developed by author Shibani Mohindra, who also has a background in the fragrance industry. They are illustrated by Sue Sansom.

The fragrances in the book are guaranteed to last the same length as the book’s natural lifespan and each story comes with a set of 16 ‘smell and tell’ stickers.

There are currently three books in the series with a fourth one out in May this year.

All books are priced at £5.99 and are available from Children’s book sellers including the Early Learning Centre, TRU and Waterstones.

For more information, visit: www.thesmellybookcompany.com