Smelly Davis Needs a Bath by Emma Hill (Illustrated by Maddie Keeling)

Book Blurb:

SMELLY DAVIS NEEDS A BATH, and his best friend Russell plans tostop the stink!
Little things like bathtime can be boring or embarrassing to talk about. It’s good to remember with Smelly Davis that everyone – from ballerinas to lawyers – needs a bath!

I received this book from the author. All comments and opinions are entirely my own and this review is voluntary.

Rayleigh’s Review:

Oh, stinky children who don’t like baths, how you will love Davis! Davis just doesn’t understand why he needs to take a bath, but luckily, he has a best friend like Russell who steps in to tell Davis, in very funny rhymes, just why he truly does need a bath!

Smelly Davis Needs a Bath is a silly book that will make bath time fun! Your kiddo will be giggling as Russell takes them, along with Davis, through all of the different people who also take baths! From a baker, to a zookeeper, to even doctors, Davis learns that everyone has to take baths!

I loved the silly nature of the book and how natural the rhyming felt. In a lot of children’s books, the rhyming words usually feel forced or don’t make sense, but that isn’t the case with Smelly Davis Needs a Bath! With how it is written and the font of the book, I found my voice taking on a naturally high-pitch tone as I read it–even to myself–in the same care-free and fun tone that I would read to a child! This book will bring out the fun side of anyone who is reading it!

There are some fun new vocabulary words to be learned as well, including words like route, revolutionary, and behooved! The glossary at the end of the book is fun to read as well, as the author explains what the words mean in a way that the child can understand, and somehow, still laugh at!

In my opinion, the intended age group for this book is 3-8, depending a lot on each individual child. But I do recommend it especially for parents who are on the hunt for how to make bathtime more fun for a kiddo who, like Davis, may be a little annoyed at halting playtime for a bath. Though the book is geared primarily towards boys (I say this based on the main characters being boys and the illustrated career people being primarily males), there is a presence of women among the career adults and I think girls would have just as much fun reading this book as boys.

Content that parents may want to know about would include two pages, ten and eleven. There is the line: “Six of seven lawyers start by drying their behind” on page ten, and on page eleven, the illustration includes three men holding towels to cover their behinds. There are also sporadic cartoon images of men and women in only towels, but the illustrations are extremely child-friendly and I didn’t find them in any way to be inappropriate, so personally, I found nothing that would make me hesitate to read this to my daughter. But, some parents may think otherwise, so I wanted to mention it nonetheless.

Overall, Smelly Davis Needs a Bath has found its place in my daughter’s library and I don’t see it leaving anytime soon! I give it 5 out of 5 stars!