Monkey Monkey Monkey

Monkey wants nuts –’monkey-monkey-monkey nuts’ so he sets off searching, finding instead furry spots on leaping leopards, leafy logs, toothy crocs and insect beams emanating from tall trees beside long streams. Up the trees he goes coming upon not those monkey nuts but creeping, crawling seeds (borne by ants), twittering rainbow birds and more. He climbs higher emerging through the canopy into a huge expanse of sky. There, overcome by its enormity, what Monkey wants most of all is his mummy. Then finally there is Monkey’s daddy to scoop him, enfold him and return him safely to more awaiting arms for cuddles, snuggles and yes – a tummy filling heap of those ‘monkey-monkey-monkey nuts’.

With its rhythm, rhyme and repetition, profuse alliteration not to mention a smattering of onomatopoeia, this lovely book is just the thing to foster a delight in verbal play, while painlessly imparting language lessons aplenty.

Painted and printed on what looks like green wrapping paper, Cathy MacLennan’s pictures exude joie de vivre as monkey and various other creatures frolic across the pages amid a jungly profusion of flora made up predominately, of spots, dots, dashes and curves.