The Best Little Monkeys in the World, Natalie Standiford, illus by Hilary Knight. ISBN: 978-0394986166
Read July 17
Published 1987
Remembered from childhood and re-read. "Mischievous"
monkeys get up to all sorts of horribly messy trouble while their
useless babysitter chats on the phone endlessly, but when the evening
draws to a close and the sitter is fast asleep on the couch, the
good-natured siblings put equal effort into (unsupervised and
un-asked) cleaning up their mess, straightening out the home, and
putting themselves to bed. No one gets into any trouble when the
parents return, none the wiser, to a clean house and a clueless but
happy babysitter.
I was surprised to see this in the library recently - I remembered it fondly from my grandparents' house from my visits there. I had always liked it because the monkey siblings were very active and imaginative and got into a lot of messes, but not maliciously. That was a nice unforseen alternative to "bad" mess-making kids, or "good" quiet and wussy uninteresting kids. I also very much liked that they were proactive (and competent) about cleaning up after themselves in order to keep their fun going. As an adult, I'm a bit horrified at the message and the idea that these little berserkers were swift enough to bamboozle their parents into continuing to use the same worthless babysitter, but as a kid, I thought it made excellent sense.
