Timothy Cox Will Not Change His Socks [Hardcover]

Robert Kinerk (Author), Stephen Gammell (Illustrator)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Kindergarten-Grade 3–"‘What would happen, I wonder,' said Timothy Cox,/‘if I went a whole month without changing my socks?'" Not one to shrink from a challenge, the boy, in the company of his faithful dog, decides to give it a try. The result is utter chaos. Timothy is banned from school, Board of Health officers call, and even his loving parents eventually banish him to the "farthest...most extreme end" of the yard. The long rhyming text is hilarious, with more and more people and animals joining the fray. No one can persuade Timothy to deviate from his plan, however, and youngsters will love chiming in with fainting neighbors, the sheriff, and just about everyone brought low by the odor: "‘Timothy, Timothy, Timothy Cox,/won't you consider, please, changing your sox?'" In the end, although he is proud of himself for following things through, the boy warns readers, "resist the temptation to waste your ambition/on some sort of silly or trivial mission." Gammell's signature lively watercolor paintings are perfect for this zany story. The pages become more and more spattered with color as the stench increases, and visual jokes abound. Hair stands on end, faces grimace, noses are held, black stink clouds fill the air, furniture and buildings are askew. This book begs to be read aloud.– Marianne Saccardi, Norwalk Community College, CT
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

PreS-Gr. 2. "What would happen, I wonder," muses little Timothy Cox, "if I went a whole month without changing my socks?" Against the advice of his talking dachshund, Walt, Tim decides to put his notion to the test: "I'm the type who gets an idea and follows it through!" Rhyming couplets describe Tim's experiment, which quickly veers into tall-tale territory as the increasingly rank socks prompt evictions from school, by his adoring parents, and even by forest animals. As Kinerk drags out the socks' progression from merely stinky to "abominable," several lines feel forced. A closing message about misguided perseverance is also heavy-handed. Still, many kids will delight in the story's gross details, and Gammell's delightful mixed-media illustrations will pull plenty of laughs with odor-indicating swathes of green paint, plaintive signs ("Try some soap!"), and visions of wild-haired, stubborn Tim and his faithful canine sidekick. Suggest this to teachers searching for materials to use in classroom discussions of hygiene and personal values. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books (April 26, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0689871813
• ISBN-13: 978-0689871818
• Product Dimensions: 11.4 x 9.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #867,340 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 4 1/2 Stronger Than Dirt, February 18, 2006

By 

M. Allen Greenbaum (California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Timothy Cox Will Not Change His Socks (Hardcover)

According to some theories, infants and young children eventually resolve a basic conflict between the desire to make things messy and to make things clean. According to some of my friends, there are adults who've never really worked this through. This might explain the prevalence of men (and some women) who don't change their underwear and socks daily, or who say they do, but lie (I reveal no names here). In any event, children and adults alike have a fascination with dirt, so I'm not surprised that the author's 3rd grade daughter suggested the basic idea for this story about a boy who wears the same socks for 30 straight days.

Timothy Cox has two motivations: Pure curiosity, and a determination to persevere no matter what the reaction. As he says to his constant companion, Walt the dachshund, "'...I'm the type who gets an idea and then follows it through." On day two, other kids are wrinkling their noses, and the next morning he receives an anonymous letter.

A registered letter came early next day.
It was brief. It was blunt. And it had this to say:
`Timothy, Timothy, Timothy Cox,
won't you consider please, changing your socks?
Your friends and your neighbors are getting fed up!'
`And it's only day three,' Timmy said to his pup.

He's ordered away from school, and, although his parents initially insist that Timothy can do no wrong ("If you really knew Timmy, that's not what you'd say"), they eventually banish him from the house. Author Robert Kinert's rhyming narration of the progressively wilder reactions to the increasingly smelly Timothy becomes a screwball comedy of one boy's determination to see things through. As the days go by the smell gets so bad that the police, reporters in helicopters, fire fighters, and the scouts judge try to get Timothy Cox to change his socks! Kinert's rhymes deftly convey both action and emotion, and the poetry is generally unstrained and clever. In concert with the progression of events, Stephen Gammell's illustrations begin restrained but get more and more cluttered and askew, highlighted for me by a high contrast black and yellow picture of three loudspeaker trucks racing down a hilly road. If anything, the book should have included more of these crazy scenes; the book has a bit too much white space early on and Gammell appears more skilled with them than with the faces we see earlier. The green, oozy splashes of green connoting the smell are very convincing and show his facility with color and technique.

It all ends happily, of course, with the socks on display (behind tightly locked doors) and the townspeople commemorating the perseverance of the now hygienic Timothy Cox. There's a mini-moral lesson at the conclusion, which I thought both an unnecessary bow to adult concerns, and a departure from the previous spirit of curiosity and individuality. Still, Kinert and Gammell convincingly tell this very tall tale, and the clean/dirty conundrum is explored in a very entertaining way.

4.0 out of 5 stars Laughed every page, November 17, 2006

By 

T. DeWitt (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Timothy Cox Will Not Change His Socks (Hardcover)

My 7 year old and I enjoyed this funny book very much!