"Smelly" Kelly and His Super Senses: How James Kelly's Nose Saved the New York City Subway by Beth Anderson

Abstract

Reviewed by: "Smelly" Kelly and His Super Senses: How James Kelly's Nose Saved the New York City Subway by Beth Anderson Elizabeth Bush Anderson, Beth "Smelly" Kelly and His Super Senses: How James Kelly's Nose Saved the New York City Subway; illus. by Jenn Harney. Calkins Creek, 2020 [40p] Trade ed. ISBN 9781684373994 $18.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R 5-9 yrs "James Kelly smelled everything. Rats in the shed. Circus elephants a mile away. Tomorrow's rain." If this olfactory gift seemed a pretty risible superpower for an early twentieth century Irish immigrant facing a new life in New York City, it was [End Page 70] going to serve him and his city well, and even win him a share of acclaim. Working for the New York subway system, Kelly sniffed out water leaks before they led to collapsed ceilings and gas leaks before they led to explosions. When his nose wasn't up to a job, Kelly relied on his well-trained hearing to detect drips and hisses, often amplified by his toolkit of chemicals and gizmos that exposed and amplified culprits; he even trained other workers in his methods. His everyday heroism went largely unsung, but his courage and speed rather than his nose finally caught the city's attention when he saved a passenger who had fallen under a subway car from being crushed or being electrocuted by the deadly third rail. Anderson's zesty stick-to-the-facts narration (only a brief passage about Kelly's childhood is speculative) in this picture book biography will be a winner in class units on community helpers, and Harney's digital illustrations, in which the ginger-haired, newsboy-capped Kelly glows with good-natured determination in the shadowy blues of the urban underbelly, crackle with energy. An author's note on Kelly's early life and career includes a photograph; a note on his toolkit, some NYC underground statistics, a note on research, a bibliography, and a short but strong list of related children's materials are also appended. Copyright © 2020 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois