You would not expect a book called Smell My Foot to be about good manners. Pleases and thank-yous are at a high premium, though, as Chick (a baby chicken) instructs his friend Brain (a large underwear-clad human with an exposed brain) in social niceties. In contention: the smelling of Brain's foot, which he claims has a great aroma. Chick, however, won't come near it without a polite greeting and formal invitation. The shoe is on the other foot, so to speak, when Spot (a hungry dog) joins in and his attempt to eat Chick can only by foiled by Brain's secret weapon: his other foot. It's as silly as it sounds, just the way budding readers like it, and the word and sentence repetition are good for literacy development as well as remembering your manners. Boisterous art matches the situations with goofy figures in hyperbolic positions, and young readers will love seeing the danger coming before the characters do. A viable Elephant & Piggie alternative for slightly more advanced readers.

This book for emerging readers offers a subversive lesson in manners and a silly but perilous adventure. Panels and word bubbles provide comedic timing while parsing the text into digestible parts, which thoughtfully assists children new to both independent reading and the comics form. Bold outlines and exaggerated features in the illustrations accentuate the playful absurdity of the narrative in this four-chapter comedy of errors.

A comedic duo stars in their first comic—a playful homage to the Dick and Jane books.Brain certainly looks smart. But, by Chick's assessment, Brain's social ineptitude says otherwise. Chick minds their p's and q's, modeling proper behavior for Brain to emulate. Brain takes Chick's repeat-after-me lessons a bit too literally, however. Instead of copying, Brain responds directly—often hilariously off-script. In exchange after exchange, the pair's silly chemistry peaks with the human and the bird smelling each other's feet. Soon, a dog named Spot arrives on the scene, adding their nose to the mix. All that foot sniffing—specifically, yummy chicken foot sniffing—prompts Spot to invite Chick over for an exclusive lunch. Will Chick see through Spot's politeness before winding up on the menu? In this first series entry, Bell flips the repetitive primer structure on its head and transforms it into a winning oddball comedy. With a limited vocabulary of around 120 words—exclusively presented through dialogue—the four-chapter story is a careful blend of verbal and visual humor. The comic-book format, with usually one to four panels per page, heightens the silly factor with well-placed punchlines. Bell's highly expressive watercolor and ink cartoon illustrations set characters against sparse backgrounds. It's up to readers to decide whether the wrinkly gray mass atop white-presenting Brain's head is tightly curled gray hair or an exposed brain.Fragrant fun for first readers. (Graphic early reader. 4-8)