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Summary
Summary
When little monkey can't find his mother, butterfly offers to help in the search. Little monkey says that his mother is big, so butterfly leads him to . . . an elephant. No, that's not right! Little monkey says his mom is furry, so butterfly leads him to . . . a bat. That's not right either. From then on, little monkey and butterfly meet many jungle animals, but they don't find Mom until little monkey comes up with just the right description.
With Julia Donaldson's effortless rhyme and Axel Scheffler's vibrant illustrations, this circular tale combines funny miscommunication with a little bit of science for a charming feel-good adventure.
Author Notes
Julia Catherine Donaldson was born on Sept. 16, 1948 in London. She is a British writer and playwright and the 2011-2013 Children's Laureate. She is known for her rhyming stories for children. These include: The Gruffalo, Room on the Broom and Stick Man. She began writing songs for children's television but has focused on writing books when the words of one of her songs - A Squash and a Squeeze were made into a children's book in 1993. She has over 180 published works with 120 of them intended for school use and include her Songbirds phonic reading scheme, which is part of the Oxfird Reading Tree.
She has won several awards including: The Stockport Book Award for her title The Troll, The Oxfordshire Book Award for her title Zog and The Oldham Book Award for her title Jack and the Flumflum Tree. In 2015 The Gruffalo made The New Zealand Best Seller List.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 1-When a little monkey loses his mother, a blundering butterfly swoops in to save the day. Monkey describes his mom as "bigger than me," so the butterfly takes him to an elephant. Then monkey describes his mother with a tail that curls around trees, and the butterfly takes him to a snake. With each new descriptor, the butterfly tries another outlandishly wrong animal until the exasperated monkey points out that none of the suggested mothers even looks like him. However, the butterfly has a very good reason for making such a mistake-her babies don't look like her. The bouncy rhyming couplets will charm children, and the butterfly's part can be sung to the tune of "Hush Little Baby." Bold cartoon illustrations on full spreads in bright jungle colors feature a host of expressive insects and creatures. Following a tradition of successful mother-identification stories such as P. D. Eastman's Are You My Mother? (Random, 1960) and Deborah Guarino's Is Your Mama a Llama? (Scholastic, 1989), this story will be entertaining for both groups and one-on-one sharing.-Julie Roach, Cambridge Public Library, MA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
The creators of The Gruffalo invent an engaging story about a little monkey looking for his mother. When the monkey says, "She's big!... Bigger than me," a helpful butterfly takes him to an elephant. When he says his mother has "a tail that coils around trees," the butterfly takes him to a snake. As the little monkey's descriptions continue to confound the butterfly, Donaldson squeezes in some basic animal facts. The monkey's mother, unlike the spider, would rather "eat fruit than swallow a fly," and she doesn't have "claws or feathery wings" like the parrot. Scheffler's teeming jungle illustrations present easy-to-recognize animals. Each spread features a fresh expression of perplexity on the little monkey's face as he narrows his search terms. The rhymed text sometimes stumbles, using language that sounds more appropriate to an adult narrator (the monkey's lines include, "Oh, dear, what a muddle!" and "None of these creatures look like me!"). In a twist on the expected ending, the butterfly looks for an animal that resembles the little monkey and takes him to his father. The simple story and cheery illustrations will appeal to preschoolers, who will relate to the hunt for just the right words. Ages 4-8. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved