When I first started reading this I was reading in the same way you read/sing the poem Jingle Bells to the same tune. In Australia, well back when I was a kid anyway, the popular song was sung with the parody lines Jingle Bells, Batman Smells so I initially assumed this was just a different parody of Jingle Bells since it starts off Jingle Bells Santa Smells. I got a fair way through this before I couldn't really force the sentences to fit the tune anymore and realised it wasn't actually meant to be read that way, but give it a go yourself by all means. Stinky Santa does rhyme though, it's a fun book and it's not about just saying a mean thing like Santa smells, if you keep with it to the end there is a very logical reason why he smells, a lot of adults will be able to relate to the reason from their own real world lives and can probably attest to doing a similar thing on occasion.



It's a great story, basically Santa, his pets, his elf, his reindeer, sled and everything is kind of neglected for 11 months of the year so by November the North Pole is a pretty rancid foul odoured, grimy dirty place. Then when December comes around Santa gets motivated, has a bath and forces the other inhabitants to clean up too.



A great book I look forward to more stuff by Otto Fishblanket, I've downloaded plenty of Gerald Hawksley's picture books and the illustrations are as good as any he's done to illustrate his own stories.