The Best Smelling Mother Goose Book Ever!: 9 Scents Inside to Scratch and Sniff

With a title that doesn't beat around the mulberry bush, this aromatic volume delivers mightily on its odoriferous obligations. Nine scratch-and-sniff panels, incorporated into the illustrations, add a new sensory dimension to such nursery rhyme staples as ""Hot Cross Buns!"" (who knew they were cinnamon?), ""Peter Piper"" (green peppers), ""Hush-a-bye Baby"" (baby rocks on the bough of a pine tree), ""Pat-a-cake"" (a lemon torte), etc. Most of the scents are pleasant, like the colorful sprays in Mary the Contrarian's garden and the flowering bush in ""Lavender's Blue,"" with the pungent exception of the ham in ""Jack Sprat."" Additional, non-scented rhymes are also included; like the other verses, they are illustrated with a cast of well-dressed mice, and what they lack in olfactory interest they make up for in whimsy. Old King Cole blows bubbles with his pipe, the spider doffs his cap to Miss Muffet. Gimmicky, but few kids will turn up their noses. Ages 3-8. (Apr.)