Tuesday Storytime: Monkeys

Storytime duties are getting shared with another trainee, and this is her first set of selections, and I think they're a great first choice. Monkeys are a perennial favorite (also see sharks, fire-trucks, and dinosaurs) and these three are cute and a show off a lovely spectrum of styles.

What Do You Say When a Monkey Acts This Way? 
Jane Belk Moncure, illustrated by Terri Super
ISBN: 0516057448
Moncure's books all have a very classic 1970s-80s Little Golden Book sort of "teaching" vibe to them, whether they are manners books or books about the alphabet or about phonics. Despite that, they're cute and repetitive in a good way, and clear and have attractive simplistic images. Here we have a young monkey acting in normal heedless ways, until other monkeys prompt it to behave more pro-socially: saying thanks and please, sharing and being respectful. The monkey goes to visit the grandparents at the end, and proves all the lessons well-learned.

The Monkey Goes Bananas
C. P. Bloom, illustrated by Peter Raymundo
ISBN: 9781419708855
Graphic-novel style, with very few words (leading to a lot of "filling in" to keep the younger ones clear on what's going on. Monkey lives on a small island, and there is a bunch of bananas on a neighbor island. Unfortunately there is a shark in the water. Monkey tries various plots to get the bananas, with a cute but very obvious twist at the end.

How to Lose a Lemur
Frann Preston-Gannon
ISBN: 9781454911319
Slightly oversized pictures and very cute lemurs (not exactly monkeys, but I'm not going to quibble) follow a boy who is searching over the whole world for friends, only to get lost and realize that perhaps those pesky lemurs might be what he's been looking for. Very cute and very sweet. Love the art-style of textured painting and collage pieces.

The Best Little Monkeys in the World

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.