Naughty Little Monkeys
PreSchool-Grade 2-Aylesworth relates a tale of mischief told through the letters of the alphabet in four lines of rhymed verse. Twenty-six naughty little monkeys engage in wild antics when their human parents unwisely leave them alone one evening. Andy flies paper airplanes, Brooke jumps on the bed, and Carla eats chocolate cake. Their behavior grows steadily more boisterous as Xavier bangs his xylophone and Yates breaks a street lamp with his yo-yo. The parents arrive home in time to send the monkeys to bed and seemingly threaten to send them away. However, on the last page, the whole family is shown on an outing at the zoo. Many of the verses are fun and clever, but others read awkwardly. The exuberant illustrations override the flaws in the text. On full-page spreads of various rooms in the house, Cole vividly sets the stage for the expressively animated creatures to wreak havoc. While this is not a core title, such as Aylesworth's similarly mischievous Old Black Fly (Holt, 1995) or Eileen Christelow's Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed (Clarion, 1989), it will provide reading-aloud pleasure.Rachel G. Payne, New York Public LibraryCopyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.