
0689842511


Opinion
From the critics

Community Activity
Summary
Add a SummaryIn the beginning it’s just a man and his monkey, eeking out a living on the street. The man juggles and the monkey, seeing a delicious banana sitting at a greengrocer’s stall, takes off like a shot so as to get a taste. The man is quick to give chase but the monkey has already begun to cut a swath of destruction in its wake. By merely eating the banana and tossing its peel to one side, a burly motorcyclist slips and crashes into a ladder. That ladder, in turn, has a painter on it who falls backwards into a full shopping cart of vegetables on a downward slope. Suddenly we’ve left the man and monkey and are watching as the cart crashes into a bicyclist, distracting a judge, who steps on a boy’s skateboard, and in the process detaches a baby from its caregiver. Eventually the baby goes flying, the city streets are a mess, and in a glorious twist of fate that defies description, the world explodes into a fabulous burst of bananas bananas bananas.

Comment
Add a CommentThere's a lot of activity going on in these pictures. Writing the words to go with the pictures would be a good writing activity for children. A good discussion could ensue about "what if" and about how one person's (or monkey's) actions, could have dramatic, far-reaching effects.
No words, but the pictures are detailed and descriptive.
My 4 yr old thinks it's very funny and asks for it again and again.
This borders on the insane. The details by illustrator David Small coupled with the plain good storytelling (and amazing absence of true bodily injury) makes this book a kind of contemporary silent film that’ll have no difficulty entertaining your pint-sized Buster Keatons. Once you begin to take in its complexity and sheer good nature, however, you cease to be merely amused and end up sincerely impressed.