Monkey Puzzle

For some reason my 4 yr old ASD kid loves this book. Lol.

This book was a delight to read! My children loved it. It held all of my little ones' attention, which can be hard to do! I have 4 children age 3 and under and they all sat still for this story. I will definately read more of this author's books for children.

We have almost all of Julia Donaldson/Axel Scheffler books and this one is one of my favorites to read. It's also one of my 18 month old son's favorites. I think the story is very clever, the rhyming is great which makes it a wonderful read-aloud, and the illustrations and so colorful and eye-catching that it makes it great to look at also. My son gets a big smile on his face when we get to the end and the monkey finds his mom. I highly recommend this book.

We are huge fans of Julia Donaldson's books, having been introduced by friends in the UK. And honestly, we can't understand why the US publisher insists on changing Julia Donaldson's titles and text to "American-ize" it. The British versions are far more lyrical and rhythmic. Is "Where's My Mom?" truly a better title than "Monkey Puzzle?" Does the publisher really think we need to translate "Monkey Puzzle" because we won't understand it on this side of the pond? Room on the Broom, The Gruffalo, Monkey Puzzle and Tiddler ("The Fish Who Cried Wolf" - really? That's a better title??) all have changes to the US text that make them a bit less appealing if you've read the British texts. We love to give these as gifts but prefer to give the British versions.

This book is fantastic! My son absolutely loves this story and we read it every night before going to bed. The story is about the monkey who loses his mom. His friend, the butterfly, offers to help monkey find his mother. The butterfly asks the monkey to describe his mother and for every description, leads the monkey to an animal-unfortunately not his mother but another animal-the elephant, the spider, the bat, the parrot, the snake, the frog etc...all based on the descriptions the monkey gives. Turns out that he doesnt know monkey's mother looks like monkey, because his own children dont look like him, i.e. caterpillars. The premise of the story is brilliant, analytical and makes complete sense. The illustrations are beautiful and vivid, the text rhymes and is just the right amount each page for my toddler. I truly enjoy reading this book to him just as much as he enjoys going through the search for monkey's mom. This one is a real winner. I am very picky about the books my son reads- I need them to be interesting, fun, educational, well-illustrated and just long enough to keep his attention. This one meets all those criteria. I actually think this one is better than The Gruffalo, the other book written by this author that won the Smarties award.

All Donaldson's books that we have bought are wonderful - neat, humorous story, with a little learning, and beautiful interesting illustrations. Kids love them.