I Stink By Kate And Jim Mcmullan

A Practical Guide to Using I Stink in the Classroom

I Stink by Kate and Jim McMullan is one of those books that shows up everywhere in elementary libraries, probably because it does its job so reliably. It is a read-aloud picture book about a little pig who wakes up one morning convinced something smells bad and spends the entire story trying to figure out what it is. The humor lands with young kids, the repetitive structure supports early reading skills, and the illustrations actually add information rather than just decorating the text. I have used this book with kindergarteners and first graders for years, mostly as a springboard into smell and sensory units, but also as a straightforward read-aloud when I need something that keeps a restless room engaged. It works because the premise is simple and the payoff is clear, which matters when you are reading to thirty seven-year-olds who would rather be doing anything else.

I Stink By Kate And Jim Mcmullan

The book follows a pig who decides someone on the farm must have a bad odor. He interrogates a cat, a dog, a cow, a horse, and a rooster, each of whom denies responsibility with increasingly elaborate defenses. The pattern repeats until the final page reveals the obvious answer: the pig is the one who stinks. The book does not moralize about it. It just lets the kid laugh at the reveal. The McMullans' illustrations are fairly detailed, which is worth paying attention to. Each spread includes small visual gags and background details that invite rereading. When I do a second read-through, I ask the kids to spot things they missed the first time. That alone can buy you ten or fifteen minutes of focused attention that would otherwise disappear after the initial laugh.

How to Use This Book Beyond Reading It Once

The most common mistake I see teachers make with I Stink is treating it as a one-and-done read-aloud. The book has enough structural repetition and visual detail to support an entire lesson sequence if you build around it properly. After the first read, I typically move into a prediction activity where I cover the final page and ask the students what they think the source of the smell is. Most kids guess correctly by the second round of questioning, which tells you something about how the pattern works in their heads. Then we discuss why the pig kept looking at everyone else instead of himself. That leads into a short conversation about perspective and self-awareness that is surprisingly easy to have with six-year-olds when you frame it around a pig rather than something abstract. For the smell and senses unit, I use the book as a launch point into an activity where students describe different scents without naming them directly. I put small containers with cotton balls dipped in safe, familiar smells around the room. Vanilla. Orange peel. Coffee grounds. Balsam fir. The kids walk the stations and write or draw what they think each smell is. The activity usually takes about twenty minutes and runs smoothly when the containers are clearly labeled underneath so kids who are not reading yet can still participate.

A Specific Problem I Ran Into and How I Fixed It

A few years ago I tried using the book with a class that had several English language learners who were not yet comfortable with conversational English. The repetition in the text actually helped them, but the humor on the final page was completely lost on some of the kids because the concept of someone being the thing they are accusing others of smelled like required a level of linguistic flexibility they had not yet developed. I realized mid-read that the punchline was landing with only about half the room. What worked was slowing down the question sequence before the reveal and making the pig's accusations more physical. Instead of just asking "Does that smell good to you?" I had the kids act out holding their noses and waving their hands in front of their faces. By the time we got to the final page, even the kids who had not caught the joke visually understood what was happening because they had been miming the reactions the whole time. It added about three minutes to the read but made the difference between a book that lands and one that just passes the time.

Where to Find or Download the Book

The book was originally published by Simon and Schuster and is still in print. You can buy a new hardcover copy from most major retailers, and used copies are widely available for a few dollars. If you are working with a limited budget, your local library will almost certainly have a copy, and many school libraries carry multiple copies because this is a staple in early elementary collections. There is no official free digital version from the publisher, and any site offering a full PDF download is likely hosting it illegally. A few educational platforms have excerpted pages or companion materials built around the book, but the complete text is only legally available through purchase or library lending. If your school has a subscription to a service like Epic or PBK Readers, check there first. Some districts have digital licenses that cover this title, but it varies by platform and region.

What This Book Cannot Do for You

I Stink is not a deep text. It is not going to teach critical thinking about social dynamics or introduce complex literary devices. The vocabulary is intentionally simple, the plot is circular, and the themes are surface-level. If you are looking for a read-aloud that challenges advanced readers or supports a sophisticated unit on inference and textual evidence, this is not the right tool. You will get more mileage from something like The True Color of Samuel Bruce by Pat Zietlow Miller or Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Pena for that kind of work. The book also does not work well with older students. Fourth and fifth graders will find the premise infantilizing unless you are using it ironically or as a diagnostic tool for younger peers during buddy reading. Even then, it is a stretch. Stick to K through second grade and you will be fine.

Companion Activities That Actually Work

Besides the smell station activity I mentioned, two other exercises consistently get good results with this text. The first is a writing prompt where students write from the pig's perspective about a different everyday situation. Instead of a bad smell, maybe he wakes up and thinks someone is late, or someone ate his food, or he lost something. The goal is to replicate the repetitive accusatory structure with a new premise. Most kids produce something usable in about fifteen minutes, and it reinforces the text structure without feeling like a worksheet. The second is a simple drawing activity where students illustrate their own version of the pig encountering another farm animal. They write or dictate one line of dialogue and add background details. I usually give them the option to either copy the book's pattern or invent a new animal entirely. Both approaches work, and the new animal option tends to produce more creativity from kids who already understand the structure well.

The book runs about thirty-two pages with a reading level that sits comfortably in the early primary range. It is short enough to read in one sitting and dense enough with visual detail to reward repeated exposure. That combination is probably why it has stayed in print for over three decades, and why it continues to show up in lesson plans across grade levels that should have moved past it.