Monkey Time by Michael Hall
Published by Greenwillow Books on February 26th 2019
ISBN: 0062383027
Pages: 48
Goodreads

An ambitious picture book that uses a monkey in the jungle with his friends to explain the concept of time. Each orange-yellow dot represents one minute as they march around monkey in his round tree mimicking a clock. Chunky, geographic illustrations in tones of green with pops of color, Hall’s signature collage-style, accompany the story of Monkey attempting to catch a minute for himself . The idea is solid but the book tries to pack in a lot as one of Hall’s minutes cheekily asks Monkey what he will do with a minute when he does happen to catch one of the round friends. Hall also throws in a lesson on the rainforest animals set into the background of Monkey’s lesson on time.  Used as an informational, illustrative text to start the discussion on time, this book could be useful, but it seems to require a deeper level of inference and knowledge than most audience members for the book may have. It could fill a void in a public or school library collection on time-telling books for younger readers, but  would be best in the hands of an educator or parent.

Reviewed by Jill O’Connor, Merrill Memorial Library, Yarmouth