Monkey Puzzle

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Unfortunately, the baby monkey doesn’t give a full description of his mother and so butterfly takes the baby monkey to the wrong animal over and over again. When the baby monkey finally explains that he looks like his mother, the puzzle is nearly solved. Investigate environmental issues linked to jungles and rainforests. How can people help to protect them?

The baby monkey is missing his mother, something many children will have experienced, and they may even have been lost. Talking to children about their experiences may help children learn some vocabulary relating to feelings such as ‘worry’, ‘anxious’, ‘nervous’ and ‘scared’. I also continued to write “grown-up” songs and perform them in folk clubs and on the radio, and have recently released two CDs of these songs. Monkey puzzle is the tale of a young monkey who searches for his mum with the help of a butterfly. Confusion unfolds as the butterfly uses only the most immediate piece of information when looking for the monkey's mum, for example 'She's big!' declares the monkey 'bigger than me' and using this information the butterfly takes the monkey to an elephant. Monkey Puzzleis a very cleverly written story which is full of humour but also introduces children to a wide range of animals as well as the concept of caterpillars changing into butterflies. The little monkey gets more and more frustrated as the story unfolds and little ones love joining in with the repetition, “No, no, no! That’s a …”. Axel Scheffler’s trademark illustrations add to the humour and we love the expressions on the animals’ faces. The story was great fun to read, with lots of opportunity for children to interact with the story, such as declaring what each animal is. As always with this collection of titles from Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler which includes the critically acclaimed 'The Gruffalo', the illustration is vibrant and brings to life the animal characters. The characters are all which the children can relate to; the monkey in search of its mother could be the children themselves, and the helpful adult butterfly can be likened to police, teachers or other adults who would help the child.You can also use this as a learning opportunity to talk about what children should do if ever they were lost and whom to approach for help. The story is wonderful to read and enjoy simply as it is, or if you want to use the book to inspire some conversation I have always found Burt is quite happy to talk about the friendly characters that Axel Scheffler brings to life in the illustrations. You could use the story to talk about different animals, introduce some mathematics by counting each animals’ legs or do some biology and talk about metamorphosis and the lifecycle of a butterfly. You could also explore language together by describing each other or thinking of a better description for little monkey’s mum. I grew up in a tall Victorian London house with my parents, grandmother, aunt, uncle, younger sister Mary and cat Geoffrey (who was really a prince in disguise. Mary and I would argue about which of us would marry him). This pattern continues with humour and rhyme as the animal pair meet numerous other animals until the monkey is finally reunited with its mum and dad. Little monkey has lost his mum but a passing butterfly tells him that she will help him to find her. The only clue that Little Monkey can give butterfly is 'She's big! Bigger than me.'

Funnily enough, I find it harder to write not in verse, though I feel I am now getting the hang of it! My novel THE GIANTS AND THE JONESES is going to be made into a film by the same team who made the Harry Potter movies, and I have written three books of stories about the anarchic PRINCESS MIRROR-BELLE who appears from the mirror and disrupts the life of an otherwise ordinary eight-year-old. I have just finished writing a novel for teenagers.The Story: A butterfly offers to help a little monkey findhis/her mum. But every time the monkey describes Mumthe butterfly introduceshim/her to a different animal. Finally the monkey tells the butterfly that Mum looks like him/her which surprises the butterfly as her babies don’t look like her! Finally the monkey is reunited with a monkey. But is it the monkey that he’s looking for?… The story begins with a little monkey, alone and lost in the jungle. This little monkey has lost his mum. Discover more about the animals in the story. With older children, search the internet for information by keying in such questions as ‘where do bats live?’. Also look out for jigsaw puzzles featuring some of the animals from the story, such as the elephant or butterfly. Puzzles can develop children’s problem-solving skills, as well as their understanding of shape and size.

In this book, a baby monkey is looking for his mother. A friendly butterfly takes charge and tries to solve the puzzle of where she might be. Eventually the little monkey becomes exasperated with Butterfly. Why does she keep getting the wrong animals? Then, the penny drops. The little monkey never gives Butterfly the key information - the little monkey’s mum looks like he does! This seems obvious to the little monkey but it isn’t to Butterfly because none of her babies looks like she does: her babies are caterpillars! This leads butterfly on a wild goose, or more appropriately to begin with, a wild elephant, chase. Little monkey has to tell him that it isn't his mum and he gives butterfly another clue - 'her tail coils round the trees'. This book can be used to encourage children to look for particular items and to count them. For example, can they spot the crocodile in the river or the caterpillars on the leaves? Or can they find the smallest and largest animals in the story? I really enjoy writing verse, even though it can be fiendishly difficult. I used to memorise poems as a child and it means a lot to me when parents tell me their child can recite one of my books.

Talk about

This book could also be the starting point for playing puzzles with children. You could hide a picture of the mother monkey using positional language such as ‘next to’ or ‘under’ and encourage the child to find it. Monkey Puzzle or Where’s My Mom by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler is full of delights for young children. You will find Julia Donaldson’s brilliant rhymes and Axel Scheffler’s wonderful illustrations along with repetition, clues, jungle animals and a great big hug. We have read it over and over again and never tire of it. If you don’t own a copy it is a great addition to your bookshelves at this time of year as Mother’s Day approaches and it is also a fantastic story to read in the Spring as an introduction to the lifecycle of a butterfly.