Review: Hey! What's that Nasty Whiff?

Hey! What's that Nasty Whiff?

Written by Julia Jarman

Illustrated by Garry Parsons

Publication date: 2010
Publisher: Scholastic Children's Books
ISBN: 978-1-407109-96-1

Summary/Back cover:
Helpful Hyena is tired of cleaning up everyone else's mess, so she takes a break. But when the poo starts to pile up, her friends soon realise that it's up to everybody to look after our planet...  And they all discover that anything is possible - with a little help from your friends!

Review:
The title of this book is what made me grab it off the library shelf, and it certainly made my 2.5 year old laugh - mostly because of the pictures of a hyena with a vacuum cleaner!  This book is aimed to make children learn the "pick up after yourself" message, but I'm not sure it completely hits that mark - I turned the final page, expecting there to be more story, and was disappointed to find that the story didn't really 'finish'.

However,despite that, the story is quite cute, and is written in a rhyming fashion.  A couple of quite funny verses that my son didn't get the rhyming humour of were:

"I finish up their dinners.
I sweep up all their crumbs.
We two care for Planet Earth
While they sit on their - "


"Tums," agreed Hyena


and...

Vulture said, "Let's go on strike,
Stop doing what we do.
They might appreciate us
When they start to smell the..."


"Rubbish?" said Hyena


Definitely worth a read if you find it at your local library, and great if you need to teach your children how to tidy up after themselves (because, frankly, what children don't need to learn that lesson?!)

My rating: 3.9 out of 5.

Review written by Bronwyn